Time Cut
by AzelmaRoark
Summary: Competitive swimming involves spending eighty percent of your life fifty percent naked. The Titans are doing just that. Sequel to Flip Turn, AU.
1. Like a Shrew With Herpes

This story is a sequel to Flip Turn. It's not absolutely necessary to have read it first, though it will certainly make things a bit easier to understand. For those who are new to the party: what follows is a gigantic AU, in which there are no superheroes, and those who would have been superheroes occupy themselves with competitive swimming (no prior knowledge of swimming required). In Flip Turn, most of the characters were young children; they are substantially older here. Comments are, as per usual with anything I write, very welcome. Boundless thanks to Avea for ninja beta-ing of doom.

In other words: _my dear, sweet god, I am writing a high school fic._ Should I be shot now, or later?

* * *

**Time Cut**

**Chapter One: Like a Shrew With Herpes**

Vic was trying to convince himself that he _did _have the energy to bike home when a red-headed hurricane nearly knocked him onto the cold pavement. And that was no easy task because Vic was a big guy.

Even though it made no sense, Vic knew exactly who had latched onto him because only one person would do that, and it didn't matter if that person was supposed to be in Georgia, working on cars with his dad. He was taller, the face a little less round, the grip a _lot _stronger, but the eyes were the same. Exactly the same.

And so were the words that came out of his mouth, even though the voice that said them was considerably deeper: "Oh my god, I _knew_ you hadn't gone home yet, 'cos you were probably helping a poor, defenseless freshman find their lunch money, or maybe helping a poor, defenseless kitty out of a tree—and Vic, I _really _hope this is the last day of school for you because I couldn't possibly be more bored.

"Hi, Wally," said Vic skeptically. "Do I want to know how you got here?"

Wally released him, though his face was no less than six inches from Vic's. "Don't worry, it was legal, I swear. Maybe." He raised an eyebrow, grin becoming impossibly wider, then pretended to think about something. "Well, okay, so the stolen car and the broken window might be borderline—"

_"What?"_

He giggled. "You're really gullible, y'know."

"I just spent three hours writing about the literary devices in _Brave New World_. So, I mean, understand that this may just be my brain turning to mush, but if you're not running from the law, why are you in Gotham when you're supposed to be a thousand miles away from Gotham?" He got back up, glad that he was wearing his heavy coat since he really had gone down pretty hard.

"You mean y-you're not h-happy to see me?" Wally sniffled extravagantly, lower lip stuck out.

"Dammit, Wally, you know what I mean!"

"Tell ya in a sec; we can talk in my car." He pointed to the bike that Vic had been innocently trying to unlock before he'd been tackled. "That yours?"

Vic nodded, then cringed as Wally tapped the lock in a few strategic places, sending it falling into the palm of his hand. It was probably because Wally was really, really good at getting into things, not because the lock was bad. Probably. He cringed again when Wally picked the bike up and started hauling it across the parking lot.

To the black station wagon that was definitely parked in the space reserved for the principal.

"Either that was the stolen car you mentioned, or you're not supposed to park there," he pointed out as he stepped over the barricade that separated student parking from faculty.

"Aww, I just needed it for a little while; he can share," said Wally as he attached the bike to the back of his car. "You coming?"

"Seeing as how you've got my bike, I think I have no choice."

The answering grin sent him all the way back to eight years old and tricks played on the girls. "That was the idea," Wally said, holding the passenger door open for Vic with exaggerated formality.

"Do you even remember where my house is?"

Wally sent him a scandalized look as he hit a button on his cell phone. "You think we're going to your _house? _What kind of non-exciting friend do you take me for?"

* * *

"Bummer that Gar's not home. You don't know where he is, do ya?" Wally twirled his straw around in his milkshake, staring into the cell phone as if it was to blame.

"He's at something with the debate team," Vic said carefully.

The straw stopped moving, Wally's head jerking up from the phone to stare. _"Gar_ is doing _what?"_

He sighed. "Not debate, not him anyway. Oratory, actually." He broke off before he said anything potentially incriminating. Gar had gotten public speaking in his head and wasn't very good at it, but Vic didn't want to discourage him.

"That won't go well." Wally cringed, but it was mostly sympathetic, and Vic unclenched his hand from the edge of the plastic seat. He shouldn't have worried, but while it was easy to remember Wally's constant laughter, it was hard to remember how it was almost never _at_ anybody.

"He's getting better," Vic supplied with a noncommittal wave.

The blue eyes lit up again, completely abandoning the previous subject. "Hey, let's call Robin! We can hit him with straw papers and stuff!" He started pressing buttons on his cell phone again, fingers moving almost faster than Vic could keep track of. Kind of like the boy's attention span.

"Umm. Wally? I don't think that's a very good…"

"Hiya, Alfie! Can I talk to Robin? Huh? Oh, sorry, this is Wally! Wally West, don't'cha remember me? I've only been gone six years—you can't have met _that_ many Wallys since then! Sorry. _Yes,_ I have a point, I _promise._ So can I…umm, 'kay, _may _I talk to Robin? Huh? Oh. Well, can you tell him I called? And that he needs to get out of the pool 'cos he'll get all wrinkled? Alright, thanks. Yeah, I'll stop by. Later!" Wally snapped the phone closed, rolling his eyes. "He's married to the swimming pool, like he's always been."

"Wally?"

"Hmm?"

"How long have you been calling Alfred…'Alfie'?"

Wally shrugged and reached for a slice of pizza. "Can't remember. But who can say _Alfred _with a straight face, anyway?" He wrinkled his nose. "If I ever name a kid anything like that, please slap me."

Before Vic could ask how he managed to say _'Alfie'_ with a straight face, the bell attached to the back of the restaurant door jingled, bringing with it a very loud, very familiar argument.

"—not right; you didn't even ask, and now I'm never going to get the stains out, and you _have_ to buy me a new one!"

"And I'd love to know how you're going to make me, sweetie."

"You know what, Koma, I think you did it on purpose."

"Hi!" said Wally, loudly, standing up to wave at Starfire and her sister. "If you're interested in some more stains, I have pizza over here that might be useful."

The girls stopped talking and blinked, at the same time, which was kind of strange—they almost never did anything the same, and yet, occasionally, without warning, they'd remind you that they had the same DNA. Starfire was only shocked for a moment before she broke into a grin, shrieked, and ran over to the table, grabbing Wally's hands and yanking him around in a circle, her back knocking into a counter and sending a napkin dispenser clattering to the floor. She blushed and bent to pick it up, not at all hurt. Starfire was one of those people who could fall out of a building and get back up wanting to go again.

Komand'r kept right on staring, though there was an intensity in the way she looked at Wally's face—well, mostly the rest of him—that Vic didn't suspect was exactly meant as friendly. Wally didn't seem to notice, but it could have been because he was busy hugging Starfire.

"I thought I'd never see you again," Starfire breathed, arms around him as if she was afraid he'd disappear if she didn't hang on.

"Like a thousand miles and a couple of states could keep me away from the best people ever," said Wally. He winced. "Umm…Star? Needing air now."

She let him go abruptly, chirping out an apology. It was something they'd never been able to get her to stop: the slightly deadly hugs. He still wondered where all that strength came from sometimes; it wasn't like Kara, who played practically every sport imaginable and hadn't yet found something she was bad at.

Starfire's eyes landed on the table—more specifically, the food on the table—well, actually, make that the mustard bottle that was next to the food on the table, and before Vic could blink she'd pulled up a chair and was in the process of twisting off the cap.

"Ohhh no, I remember this." Wally yanked the bottle out of her hands. "You are _so_ not pouring mustard on the whole thing."

Starfire scratched the side of her head, fingers getting lost in her endless mass of hair. "Actually, I had been thinking of pouring it on some pickles this time." She paused, glancing around the table thoughtfully. "With pepper."

"Not on everybody else's food!"

"I _won't,"_ said Starfire, tilting back her head to stare up at him. "Now may I please have my bottle?" She tapped some pepper into her palm and licked it. "Yes, I think this will be satisfactory."

Wally cringed, but cautiously handed back the bottle. "You do realize that this is the kind of stuff that people dare me to do?"

"They dare you to do anything else?" asked Komand'r as she slid off her parka and sauntered over to take the seat next to him.

"Maybe," Wally said cryptically, raising an eyebrow. "Hey, weren't you like in jail?"

Komand'r rolled her eyes, helping herself to Wally's milkshake. "Community service, moron. Not the same as jail. Hey, this is pretty good." She snapped her fingers at Starfire. "Minion! Get me a shake."

"You have two legs," Starfire stated, though she didn't look up from spreading mustard on a plate full of pickles, which she'd arranged in a circle.

A caustic smile crawled onto her face as she gritted her teeth. _"Koriand'r._ Get. Me. A. Shake."

_"No."_

Komand'r dragged the plate of pickles out of reach, grabbing Starfire's hand when she tried to take it back and holding it, palm pressed into the table. "If you don't wipe that little smile off your face, I will do it for you," she spat, voice low and dangerous.

Vic took a deep breath, ready to say the words, the ones that would stop this, the ones he needed to make her sit down and take her hand off Starfire's wrist.

"She's not smiling, but neither are you, and I think you wouldn't look nearly as much like a mouse with rabies if you'd try it." But those weren't the words he was going to say—Wally had said them, the syllables running together because his mouth could never keep up with his brain

And Vic remembered how much easier it had always been when Wally was around.

The statement didn't exactly put Komand'r in the mood for smiling. Letting go of Starfire, she spun on Wally with a vicious glare, though it quickly softened into something that was definitely not a glare. "You can't _really _think that, sweetie, can you?" The words sounded like they'd been dipped in sugar water and left there to harden for a few weeks.

"Yep, 'fraid so." Wally pretended to think about it, taking another look at Starfire, who had her hand close to her chest. "Hmm, actually, sorry: maybe it's more like a shrew with herpes, I guess. Also, you're kind of a bitch. Just so you know," he stated, dragging his milkshake away from Komand'r and wiping the straw on his shirt.

It was even worse than that time six years ago, when Roy had put syrup in Komand'r's swim cap. For a split second, Vic was seriously concerned that she'd try to hit him, and Wally was bigger than she was, but not by much—and Komand'r was almost six feet tall. And she'd once broken a varsity baseball player's nose on the hood of his car. When she was fifteen.

So Vic stood up when she did, staring down into clouded dark eyes and trying not to see the way Starfire was clutching the table and biting her lip, face wrinkled with fear. "Don't do anything you'll regret, Koma," he said, hoping that one of the employees would see the situation and intervene. Vic didn't fight. At all. He just usually found himself praying that his size would fool people into thinking that he did.

"Oh, I wouldn't regret it," she spat. "But you're not even freshies, so you're not worth it. Maybe next year." She yanked her purse from the back of her chair and stalked towards the door of the restaurant. "Have fun walking home, _darling_ sister," she tossed over her shoulder.

Vic counted two seconds after the door had swung shut behind Komand'r's black heels before Wally shrugged and offered, "What? She _is!"_

"How nice of you to bring it to her attention," Vic sighed, sinking back into his seat and waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal.

"Hey, somebody had to," he said, going back to his milkshake as if nothing had happened.

Starfire's face was slightly pale—which looked really disturbing for her. "Thank you," she said, smiling wanly. "I can usually manage her, but I was upset about the sweaters that she ruined, and—" She broke off as her eyes followed a dark red car out of the parking lot as it ran a stop light. "And that was definitely my sister driving away without me."

"S'okay; we'll drive you," said Wally. "And maybe if Vic is really nice, he'll let us go to his house first because I don't remember what it looks like."

"You _totally _remember what it looks like!"

Covering his plate with both hands when Starfire politely offered him some of her pickles-with-mustard, Wally laughed, rolling his eyes as if he had an inside joke. "Well, _yeah, _but how else would I trick you into letting us play your video games?"

"Hey, Wally?"

"Hmm?"

"If you want to trick me into doing something, you might not want to tell me that you're trying to trick me."

"See, you're so much fun 'cos you think that _that _was the trick." He took his straw out of the mostly-empty milkshake to poke Vic with it.

Vic shook his head. "It can't possibly be worse than the fight that you just narrowly avoided. Did I mention it's good to have you back?"

"Can't possibly be worse than _that?_ Give me a little credit!"


	2. Definitely Not Eleven

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Two: Definitely Not Eleven**

* * *

It wasn't home yet until he'd bothered Robin, and he'd made sure everybody knew it. Besides, the video games got boring pretty fast. Wally had never really been that much into them: watching characters on a screen was only so exciting when you didn't _actually_ get to fight the dragon or find the coins or drive the car. And Starfire kept wanting to play the one with the monkeys, because she liked feeding them bananas. They'd tried to explain the story to her, but she was mostly interested in the bananas. 

"Guys, can we _go_ now, _please?"_ he whined, lying on his stomach with his chin propped up on one of Vic's bean bags.

"One moment," said Starfire, face glued to the screen. "I only have to find six more bananas for Dixie."

He dropped his face into the bean bag, sighing loudly. "The bananas aren't the _point,_ Star; you're supposed to be climbing the pirate ship."

Starfire shrugged. "I'll do that later."

"You said 'later' like two hours ago!"

Vic tapped him on the shoulder until he looked up, pointed to the clock above the television. "Actually, it was about fifteen minutes ago."

"Details, details," said Wally. "But you did say that we could go see Robin later, and it's later now, so can we? _Please?" _He fixed him with the smile that he knew would work.

It did. Like always. "You okay with finishing later, Starfire?"

Starfire shook her head. "I'm already finished—they all have enough bananas now." She grinned and shut the game off without bothering to save it, turning to Vic with her head slightly to the side. "Why do they call it Donkey Kong? There are no donkeys in the game."

Vic paused for a long moment, then finally shrugged. "No idea." Which was a very rare statement from him, since he knew everything about games. And computers. And cars. Though Wally knew a lot about cars, too, and whenever they'd talked on the phone it was usually about that.

"We'll ponder that in the car—let's _go,_ guys, c'mon!"

Starfire grinned and raised her arms, so Wally did what she wanted and took hold of her hands, pulling her to her feet. Vic grabbed a set of keys from where he'd left them on the coffee table as Wally pulled them both out of the room.

"Fine, I'll go; but I'm notdunking him, I'm _not_ annoying Bruce because I'd like to keep breathing, and I have to be back by five to make dinner."

"No worries," Wally said cheerfully. "You can leave the dunking to me, Coach Bruce is probably off being rich and important, and why do you have to make dinner?"

Vic shrugged, eyes dropping to a spot on the floor—the spot that still hadn't come out from where Wally had spilled orange paint when he was ten. "Let's just go—bothering, right?" He offered a smile, but it was one of those fake ones.

Wally raised his eyebrows as he opened the front door, but he decided not to say anything now. He'd just say something later, if the compliant sadness in Vic's eyes didn't go away.

* * *

"…I'd forgotten that he sorta lived in a mansion, y'know."

Vic laughed, like there was something funny about the fact that Wally had forgotten, but it was _true._ He'd been over here a million times, of course, before he was old enough to realize that it was unusual, but Robin brought to mind those crazy monks who would beat themselves for their sins, not Wayne Manor. Truth be told, the place kind of freaked him out: it was like something out of a movie set, one of those retarded ones where the little girl got taken away to stay with her evil uncle, and he didn't want to think about what actually _living_ there would be like.

Except, Coach Bruce wasn't the evil uncle, though how he'd come into Robin's life was fairly similar to the clichéd story. Robin had eventually explained it, after two years and enough time for Wally to have basically figured it out on his own. He'd said that Robin was the bravest person he knew, and he'd meant it.

Alfred had offered to show them to the pool, but Wally had waved a hand dismissively and said that he remembered where everything was. Which he did, even though he'd sort of forgotten that Robin _lived_ here. And anyway, if Alfred was there, it would put a stop to most of the Robin-bothering. Which was unacceptable.

"Do you think he has really been down here since he got home from school?" Starfire asked as she slid open the glass door, bringing the scent of chlorine and sticky humidity.

"Do you think a week has seven days?" Vic sighed, following her into the huge room.

It was a really nice pool. Six lanes, twenty-five meters (Robin hated yards for some reason), and their pace clock _worked,_ unlike the one that Wally's coach back in Georgia kept having to hit to make the needle move. Wally peeled off his coat and tossed it to the ground without bothering to see where it landed. He'd forgotten how warm Coach Bruce kept the place; the water was freezing, and Robin turned blue really easily—and had a bad habit of staying there too long, especially when his guardian was at work and couldn't do anything about it.

And he was probably about to turn into an icicle right now, considering how long he'd been swimming. Swimming butterfly in the center lane with his head down, completely unaware that he wasn't alone.

Robin had a nice back.

Starfire waved at him, but of course he didn't respond—then she yelled his name, but that didn't work either. Then she shrugged and walked over to the end of the lane, flip-flops squishing on the white tiles as Wally and Vic followed, and she bent to pick up the kickboard that had been lying on the edge of the deck. And leaned over to tap Robin on the head when he got close enough to the wall.

"Surprise!" she chirped. "We came to bother you!"

Robin kind of choked on the water, jerking his head up and really, obviously trying not to cough as he stared up at her. At them. At Wally. Then he took off his goggles, setting them against his forehead, and though the red, circular indentations under his eyes made Wally frown…they didn't even matter because Robin had _really _nice eyes. It wasn't that Wally didn't know what he looked like, because he did, he had pictures of him with the rest of the team, even, but Robin had been eleven years old then, and…and he wasn't eleven now.

Wally caught his gaze drifting a little further down. No, definitely not eleven. _At all. _

Robin blinked, which was more than cute enough to distract Wally from whatever witty remark he'd been planning to make, crossing his arms and leaning them against the deck. "You're not bothering me," he assured Starfire, and it took Wally a few seconds to remember that yes, she had said something about that. His forehead wrinkled as he looked up at Wally, then finally at Vic for help.

"Think you remember Wally," Vic said. "Who will someday tell us why he's back in town. Seriously, man—are you here for vacation, or did you move back, or what?"

"Moved," he answered, focusing on the thoughts in his head that were appropriate for conversation. "I'll show you guys where later. So Robin, how many years have you been in that water?"

He shrugged. "Since four."

"Geez!"

"What time is it now?"

"Almost seven-thirty, you crazy person," said Wally, actually taking the time to look at Robin rather than, well, _looking _at him. His lips were, predictably, blue, and one of his shoulders was at a weird angle, one that Wally recognized as profoundly not good. "Just so you know, if you're trying to die a noble death at sea, you might want to find a bigger body of water. It'll be easier to keep people from looking for you."

For a moment, Robin didn't answer, just stared in disbelief, and then he sort of halfway-smiled, an expression that reminded Wally way too much of Coach Bruce. "Now I _know_ you're Wally."

Starfire kicked her shoes off and sat down on the edge of the deck, rolling up the legs of her pants so she could drop her feet into the water. "But swim team is over for at least a month, if I'm not mistaken."

"You guys still swim?" Wally felt a grin warm his face.

"Oh, yes," said Starfire. "But do you remember how the pool during the summer was outside? We swim inside now, like this one," she indicated the big room, "except sometimes our big clock stops working, and Coach Clark has to hit it." She tapped the side of her chin, then added, "It is very strange to see him hit something. Even an inanimate object."

Wally blinked. "Wait, so you guys swim for—and—did Coach Bruce stop doing it, or what?"

"No, he didn't quit, but this is during high school," Vic said, and for some reason, that was comforting. Bruce didn't need to quit. That would be bad for a lot of parties, but especially Robin—and Wally found himself really, _really_ not wanting things to be bad for Robin. "Coach Clark teaches English. And yes, it's impossibly hard to stop calling him 'Coach' during class. Good thing he doesn't mind."

The man was, at best, a fuzzy memory to Wally, the much-older cousin of one of Vic's friends, the coach they saw a few times each summer and didn't really pay that much attention to because they were busy trying not to get in trouble for climbing the fence. But he did remember that, unlike Coach Bruce, he didn't look like he belonged about six thousand miles away from children. And it made sense. Though Wally would have thought that he'd be more of the kindergarten teacher type.

"Well, _this _will be interesting," Wally announced. "I wonder how annoying I can be before I make him mad."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "And _I'm _the one who gets labeled insane." He looked like he was going to smile, but it turned into an attempt to take the kickboard back from Starfire. "Okay, you guys, I really need to finish this set now."

"Naw, you're gonna get out of the water and explain to Starfire why they call it Donkey Kong, since you know everything," said Wally. He'd taken another look at Robin's shoulder and decided that nobody was going to be finishing any sets today. And if that meant that Wally had to get in the pool and drag him out…well, he wouldn't complain. At all.

Robin sent him a completely confused look, but shook his head. "I have a thousand more meters, and then we can talk about…were you guys _really _playing Donkey Kong?"

Wally took a step closer to the pool. Fought the urge to take a few more steps. "You should try being juvenile sometime before you get too old; it's fun."

"Uh huh." Robin didn't move.

"Seriously, Robin, you've been here long enough." Vic frowned, taking a deep breath, and Wally wondered if he'd agreed to come along for a reason other than bothering. "We can find something else to do, huh?"

They stared at each other, as if waiting to see who'd blink first, and whatever battle of wills they were in, it seemed a well-worn script—until finally, when Robin sighed and climbed out of the pool, rolling his eyes when Vic pointed insistently to the towel hanging over a chair. And though Wally had read enough of Vic's emails about Danielle—and, later, about Danielle breaking his heart because she was selfish, shallow, and stupid (Wally's words: Vic insisted on being infuriatingly accepting and understanding)—to know that he didn't have anything to worry about, he still had to force himself to take a deep breath.

That was when a polite-but-not coughing noise from the doorway made Wally turned around to see Komand'r leaning against the glass, arms across her chest, face contorted in a predatory snarl, and he wasn't sure who it was directed at—but he could take a guess.

"Hi, jailbait," she sang. "You finally decided to ditch the losers and hang out with somebody who's _worth it?"_

Wally had to force himself to take several more breaths.

* * *

"But there are no donkeys in the game."

Vic sighed. "Starfire, that's just what they ended up calling it. Maybe there wasn't a reason. Maybe it was some weird translation error."

She stopped walking to tilt her head to the side, sighing loudly. "Or maybe you just didn't get to the part with the donkeys yet."

Robin pushed open the door to his room and turned on the light. "I'll look it up," he announced, crossing the room to his computer and sliding into the chair, still wearing nothing but his suit, towel falling limply on the floor when he leaned forward to type something into a search engine. Wally couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

Vic went to join him at the computer, and Wally followed with the others, suppressing the urge to glare when Komand'r sat on top of the desk, pretending to be interested in the screen when it was painfully obvious what she was really interested in.

"Seriously, Robin, it's fine, you don't have to—"

"She wants to know, and I'm _going _to find out," he stated forcefully, blue eyes narrowed and intense.

Sighing, Vic shrugged and started looking through a drawer below Robin's television. "Gonna see if you have any cool games. You know, the ones you only have 'cos people give them to you as presents, and then you stick them in here in alphabetical order and never play them."

"Does he have the one with the green dinosaur that has very large eyes?"

After a few tense seconds of Wally telling himself that he really shouldn't glare at Komand'r because that would be mean and he was only a mean person before nine in the morning, Robin closed a window on the computer, turned to Starfire from where she was sitting on the floor, and said with a hint of triumph, "They wanted it to convey stubbornness. 'Kong,' means 'monkey' colloquially in Japan due to the movie. And it wasn't originally called 'Monkey Kong'; that's a myth."

Wally grinned down at him. "Stubborn? Like you?"

"I'm not stubborn."

"So are."

"I need to do pushups now," he muttered, shifting surreptitiously away from Komand'r as he pushed the expensive-looking laptop further to the back of the desk.

"See. Stubborn."

Robin's jaw tightened visibly. "That's not stubbornness. That's doing what I'm supposed to do."

"Coach didn't say anything about training over the break," Vic interjected from the floor, sitting in the middle of a pool of black wires. "Now where's—Starfire, I need that!"

She didn't listen, leaned over the television in a way that made her volumes of hair obscure what she was doing, and a few seconds later she spun around, eyes bright with victory. "I plugged it in correctly, even though Robin likes to hide the cables."

He gritted his teeth. "I do _not_—"

"You put them in that drawer with rubber bands around them if you don't use them often," she pointed out solemnly, patting the drawer. "But that's okay; I am very good at finding things."

Komand'r cleared her throat, crossing one leg over the other, still sitting on the desk. "So. Thought you were gonna do pushups, jailbait."

Robin blinked. "I…was."

Her smile reminded Wally a little bit of a snake. Maybe a snake that had just found a nice, sunny rock to sit on and was _way _too happy about it.

"If you screw up your shoulder again, Coach will _not _be happy," said Vic. "And it's freaky when he's not happy, so I'd rather you not."

Again. The word was heavy and threatening, somehow, and Wally was glad for at least six different reasons when Robin took another uncertain glance at Komand'r and amended, "Actually, my shoulder does kind of hurt."

He stopped being anything that looked like it might be related to 'glad' when Komand'r's eyes lit up in that same, happy-snake way. "Ohh, you poor _baby._ A massage will make it all better."

Robin kind of choked. "Umm. That's really not—"

But she'd hopped off the desk and had him pinned to his chair before he could finish, Robin cringing visibly as she touched him, clearly using all the willpower he had to avoid jerking out of her grip and putting as much space between them as possible.

"No need to thank me; I don't mind at _all."_ She stared hungrily down at him on the last word, and it was perfectly clear how much she didn't mind—and just as clear that she had no idea what she was doing, and it was just an excuse to touch him. Of course.

Robin stared at the calendar on his wall (the one that had about a million things written on it in tiny, perfect script), an expression that could only be called absolute misery on his face as Komand'r caressed his back, his breathing controlled and deliberate. Until finally, Wally couldn't take it anymore and stalked over to them, meeting Komand'r's eyes and hoping he looked something like intimidating. Even though that had never been his strong point.

"That," he said curtly, "is not a massage." He got between the two of them, sending Komand'r a smile that was way too polite, ignoring her vicious glare. Mostly ignoring the way Robin immediately tensed when he touched him—and it was _bad,_ he realized as he began to knead Robin's shoulders, and he completely believed what Vic had said about this not being the first time he'd hurt himself.

Robin pulled away slightly, head swinging around to glare at Wally, one hand gripping the edge of his desk till his knuckles turned white. "Can you _please _not touch me?"

"Can you _please _not run your back through a meat grinder?"

He took a controlled breath. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm the only one not wearing a shirt."

Oh, Wally had noticed. Wally had _definitely _noticed. But this was absolutely a bad time to point that out, and an even worse time to solve the letter of Robin's complaint by removing his own, so he just opened a drawer near Robin's desk and tossed a t-shirt into his lap. Robin glared, but pulled it on.

"There. Now you're not. Any more requests?" he asked cheerfully as he continued.

"Yeah: _stop_ touching me."

"'Kay, Robin," he said, working on a particularly bad spot below the boy's neck. "I'm gonna ask you if you actually want me to stop. And if you do, then I will. But I want you to think about it first. I know you're really good at thinking; you told me when you were seven."

"Stop. Patronizing. Me."

He grinned. "But don't stop touching you?"

Robin didn't answer for a while, but finally crossed his arms on his desk and leaned his head into them slowly, as if he wasn't really sure how. "Stop patronizing me," he repeated, the words a million shades less biting.

"That's fair," Wally agreed. "I won't even say another word, I promise. It's just that, as interesting as it sounds to have Coach Clark not-happy, I'd prefer to be the one to cause it."

"Thought you weren't g'nna t'lk."

"Sorry. Shutting up."

So he shut up and didn't pay attention to the infuriated glares from Komand'r as she stretched out on Robin's bed with her feet on top of Starfire, or the single, questioning look from Vic—he'd probably be asking later, but Wally didn't care about that; he almost even found it hard to care about the perfect, solid muscles beneath his fingers when said muscles were knotted into something unrecognizable as human. And he'd been able to fix some of it by the time Robin's eyes started to close and his breathing evened out, though it was still _bad,_ and how long had the boy been trying to kill himself in the most painful way possible, and—

"What are you doing?"

Wally probably should have been paying more attention, because he definitely wasn't prepared for Bruce looming over him, voice carefully modulated but fully alert. Robin jerked to attention in less than a second, a tiny gasp escaping him as his right arm knocked over a jar of pens on his desk. He stared at Bruce in disbelief, trying to clean up the mess without looking at it, eyes locked on the man as if he were trying to assess how much trouble he was in. Or analyze it. Or something. Whatever it was, it kind of made Wally mad, and he kept his hands on Robin's back, trying to calm him.

"He wasn't—we weren't—nothing," Robin finally managed, shaking his head and pulling away from Wally entirely. He stood up, pushing the chair back under the desk and taking a deep breath.

"I see. I'm sorry I was late tonight; a meeting ran late and there was some work I had to finish." Bruce paused deliberately and turned his attention to Wally with a look that made him wonder if being mad was worth it. "Nice to see you again, Wally."

"You, too—umm, sir." He glanced over at Robin again, who was red-faced and looked like he wanted to take the place of the chair under his desk. "And when you get a chance, you should take a look at Robin's shoulder. I think he hurt it—again."

Robin's eyes widened in horror. _"Wally—" _But he must have not been able to think of anything to put on the end of that, so he closed his mouth.

Wally shrugged. "It's his left shoulder."


	3. I Can't Skate

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Three: I Can't Skate**

* * *

He didn't like having people over. They'd never _leave, _and Robin's ability to enjoy being friendly had a short expiration. And he would have to be pleasant at enough dinner parties and society balls in the coming week to make him more than tired of it already. Of course, Robin hadn't exactly invited them, not that he should have expected anything less from Wally. Or Starfire. Or Komand'r, really.

_Especially _Komand'r, now that he thought about it. Robin shuddered. It had taken him thirty minutes to convince them to leave, and even then, it was only because he had to study.

So, by all logic, he really shouldn't be voluntarily in the same room with Raven, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a mug of tea dangerously close to her left knee, two heavy books by her side and a third in her lap. But he didn't have a choice unless he wanted another B in English, and he didn't. Besides, it wasn't really the same with her. It didn't feel like having people over, for some reason. Raven understood, was one of those people who didn't mind long silences, didn't think there was something wrong if you answered in monosyllables, and didn't violate basic principles of personal space.

Unlike certain people.

At least his shoulder wasn't hurting as much anymore.

"So. Why is he swearing?"

Raven looked up from the book to raise an eyebrow at him. "Why do _you _think he's swearing?"

He let his breath out in an angry rush of air. "See, this is why I_ hate_ it. I don't want to tell you why I think something happens—I don't have enough data to formulate a reasonable hypothesis; I want to _know _why it happens."

"Literature doesn't work that way, Robin," she said calmly. "I'm really sorry, but there's no formula or theory or equation. And there's not going to be. You have to think for yourself."

"I am perfectly capable of thinking for myself. I just don't know why every other word Holden says is 'damn'."

Raven smirked in between a sip of tea. "Well, not _every _other word. Sometimes it's 'hell,' you know."

It made him think of a possible solution that made fractionally more sense. "Would it help if we counted the curses and organized them by chapter?"

"Somehow, I doubt it." She actually laughed: a real one, not her usual, sarcastic, I'm-stabbing-my-eyes-out-with-a-spork-on-the-inside kind of laugh. It almost surprised him out of being offended. Almost.

He snatched the book from her, glaring into it and willing the sentences to shift into something he could make sense of. Something that followed any acceptable rules of logic. "I don't even know what the title means."

"Didn't you read this? He talks about it on page—"

"Rae. I _know _he talked about it. He misread some song lyrics, and now his new career choice is to stop kids from falling off an imaginary cliff. And I have all the references to it highlighted, and I can tell you what pages they're on, and what happens before and after…but it still doesn't make sense." It was the summation of everything he hated about English: just because you knew the answer didn't mean you knew the _answer. _And Bruce had never made him do a lot of English—well, he did, but not the kind with no answers.

"Well, what do you—"

Robin put his hand to his forehead. "If you're about to ask me what I think it means, please, just don't."

Raven sighed, taking the book from him and scooting around next to him so she could turn the pages to a passage, pale index finger almost blending in with the page as she pointed. "Maybe you can tell me what _that _means."

He squinted at it, feeling his forehead wrinkle as he tried to make sense of the words—which he'd reread this afternoon before he'd gone down to the pool, hoping that they'd sink in after four miles of flip turns and water and semi-consciousness. They hadn't, and they weren't sinking in now, either, but he had to try. "So it's something about…children, and…and he wants to save them from falling from somewhere—and I think Mr. Antolini said something about a fall at the end of the book."

"Now you're getting somewhere," Raven said, straightening her shirt. It was one of those things that girls wore deliberately too big so they could have a different color underneath. "So 'the catcher in the rye' means—"

"Umm." He dragged the eraser end of his pencil along the book's spine, hating how stupid he sounded. This wasn't him. He didn't speak this way. "Innocence? Childhood?"

"It's close enough," she grinned. "Now, I'd look again at what Mr. Antolini said about falling."

"But if that's what it is, why didn't he just _say that?"_

"Because I wouldn't get to come over here nearly so often if you understood English."

Robin looked up from the book to shake his head at her. "That wouldn't stop you. You don't get chemistry nearly enough to stay away for too long." He made a note to find all the passages about falling. And maybe organize them. Into something. Something that made sense—if this class could make anything that looked like it could pass for sense. "Besides, I like having you over here."

"I don't give you a headache?" She drained the last of her tea.

"J.D. Salinger gives me a headache. _You_ say what you mean and only swear when Gar pours ice down your shirt—and I'm pretty sure you don't even own an intentionally obnoxious hunting hat."

Raven rolled her eyes as she leafed through one of the bigger books on the floor, stretching out on her stomach and crossing her ankles in the air. "Nice to see I meet such high standards."

He leaned over her shoulder, taking in the sound of the too-thin pages being turned. "What are you reading?"

"Byron. Not really reading. Just soaking."

"What?"

"The words," she murmured, turning slightly so he could see her features settle into a quiet smile. The scarce kind, coming from Raven, peaceful and without a hint of bite. "Sometimes I just like to look at them."

"…What?" he repeated blankly.

"Have you ever just—I dunno—read a bunch of equations or something, just because they make everything _alright,_ make you feel—like you've been invited to something important?" She turned another page, chin resting gently on the edge of the anthology.

Robin stared at her, approximately half as frustrated as he'd been sophomore year when he'd been forced to read _Romeo and Juliet_. "…No. I use equations to solve problems. Because that's how you solve them. And if I don't have the equation, I think about it until I can make one work."

She laughed into her book. "How are we friends, again?"

"Because you don't own the obnoxious hunting hat, remember?"

Raven plucked his pencil out of his hand to poke him in the wrist with the eraser. "Love you, too. Guess this is your way of telling me that you completely understand every literary device in the book and are more than ready to write a six page paper."

* * *

"Does that hurt?"

He shifted on the edge of the bed, eyes locked on a spot on the wall, trying to make himself believe that it didn't. Robin kept his breathing even and didn't answer.

"I think you heard me, Robin."

"Not really," he muttered after a pause. It was just what he always dealt with; he was used to it, and complaining wouldn't make it go away. Besides, Bruce's way of solving the problem was inevitably some ridiculous form of overreacting.

Bruce wordlessly moved Robin's arm into a different position, and a stabbing pain ran through him that made him gasp—no worse than earlier that afternoon, just surprising. That was all.

"Not really?" he asked humorlessly, looking down at Robin with a raised eyebrow.

He shrugged out of Bruce's grasp. "It's just the same thing it's always been; you don't need to alert Congress."

"I'm very well aware that it's the same thing it's always been," he said. "It's the same thing it's been since you were eleven, and while I won't be alerting Congress, you won't be in the water until Saturday."

Robin spun to face him, the sudden movement hurting, but he ignored it. "Bruce!"

_"Robin." _

"This is completely unreasonable," he began, trying to keep the panic to an acceptable level, one that he could argue through. He couldn't take two days off. It would have immeasurable consequences, and he'd never be able to make it up, and was going to completely crash at Sectionals—he couldn't take two days off. "Look, I won't do fly or anything if you don't want me to, but you can't just tell me not to swim."

"I just did," said Bruce. "No swimming until I'm there to watch you, which means no swimming until Saturday. In the future, I'd be more willing to compromise if I could trust you not to overdo it."

The anger wormed its way into his chest. "Do you think I'm still seven or something?"

"I think you're going to put some ice on that shoulder, take some painkillers, and stop arguing." He stood up as if that effectively ended the conversation, fixing Robin with the look that had always made him listen when he was younger. Now, it mostly just annoyed him. Mostly.

Robin sighed loudly, tried one more time even though he knew it wouldn't do any good, "Could I at least—"

"Your phone's ringing." He pointed to Robin's backpack.

He gritted his teeth as he unzipped the side pocket and flipped open the phone, feeling Bruce's eyes on him. He'd heard it ringing himself, of course, but Bruce had a talent for closing subjects before anyone else was ready to close them. Then, Robin's jaw got even tighter when he realized who was calling. Figured. No one else would call at ten-thirty.

_"What,_ Wally?"

"Hi, I have a great idea," he chirped as soon as Robin had gotten the words out. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

He closed his eyes, sinking into his desk chair and leaning his palm into his forehead. "Not anything I'm supposed to be doing."

"Great! That's what I spend my whole life doing, pretty much. I'm thinking of making it a vocation…thingie." He could _hear_ the self-satisfied grin right behind the words. "Anyway. You should come and do things you're not supposed to do with us. Especially if things you're not supposed to do involve ice skating."

It wasn't that he wasn't supposed to skate, but—he _shouldn't _skate, not when he had more important things to do. And if Bruce wasn't going to let him swim (Robin wasn't planning on bothering with trying to convince him; it would be about as effective as convincing Terra to give up on her crush on Coach Clark), he should be doing important things. Like the English paper that was due at the end of January. And…Robin _did _want to skate, but…but he wasn't going to.

"I can't skate," he said finally.

A heavy sigh from the other end of the phone. "Hey, can I talk to Coach Bruce for a sec?"

"No."

"Oh, c'mon, I really do need to tell him something!"

"He's busy, Wally."

"So not. I can _hear it_ when you lie, y'know." A short pause for breath. "And wouldn't you feel bad if I had a life-threatening problem, and he was the only one who could help, and you didn't let me talk to him, so I _died,_ and the last thing you said to me was a _lie?"_

"I could never live with the guilt," he deadpanned.

"Great! So can I talk to him? _Please?" _

"If you think that being stupid is going to—"

That was when he noticed Bruce standing over his chair, one hand held out for the phone. Robin forced the air out of his lungs in a long breath, then reluctantly handed the phone to Bruce—and of course he'd caught every word, because Robin had gotten in trouble more times than he cared to recall due to Bruce's hearing.

They didn't talk for very long. Robin was reasonably sure he knew what they were talking about. He was positive when Bruce said, "Of course he can go." He really didn't want to talk to Wally when Bruce passed the phone back to him. The smugness was practically dripping out of its speakers.

And when Wally spoke, it was the same voice but not at all the words he'd been expecting. "'Kay, so I'm sorry for being a prick. It's okay, seriously, we'll have fun. I promise not to be annoying. I won't even let Gar be annoying, alright?"

Robin blinked. "…Alright?"

"Meet us there at five, and seriously, it's okay. You can call me if you need directions; I remember where it is."

"Wally, what—"

"It'll be _fine,_ Robin, don't worry so much.

"What are—"

"I've gotta call everybody else, but I'll see you tomorrow. And seriously. Thanks for coming. It'll be fine."

_"What_ will be fine?" he finally managed to ask, but Wally had hung up the phone.

Robin narrowed his eyes at Bruce, who was standing framed in the doorway, looking inappropriately amused.

"Did he say anything weird to you?"

"Not that I recall." Some of the amusement drained away, though most of it remained. "Ice. Painkillers. Sleep. I'll have Alfred bring you the ice. I think you can handle the other two on your own."

He glared. "It's not even eleven."

"And you were up till two-thirty last night reading something on the internet about biomechanics."

Sometimes, Robin_ really_ wished that Bruce was just a swimmer and not telepathic in his spare time. He felt himself flush. "It was a really interesting article."

"Tell me about it tomorrow," Bruce said, features softening into a smile. He took half a step forward, as if he wanted to walk into the room again, but then terminated the movement and, after a pause, turned around.

"…Can I swim tomorrow if Alfred watches me?"

_"Good night,_ Robin." The tone could have been something like humor, but it was a little hard to tell, because Bruce was already halfway down the hall when he said it.


	4. Vic Never Lies

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Four: Vic Never Lies**

* * *

He felt _bad._

He'd never wanted to embarrass Robin. Actually, okay, maybe he did a little bit because Robin was even cuter than usual when he was embarrassed, but not anything like _this._ Wally sighed as he shut the car door and began walking towards the pond, wondering why he'd never bothered to find out if Robin could skate. Why the others had never bothered to do something about the fact that he couldn't.

When he'd asked, Vic had just shrugged and said that it never came up. Wally had tried to ask him why it had never come up in freaking _Gotham,_ which was freaking _cold _in the winter, but of course Gar had dragged them all into a debate about which of two video games was better.

It was one of those bodies of water that couldn't decide if it wanted to be a lake or a pond. He'd been here with Starfire a lot; she'd discovered it right after the end of her first summer here, and had begged her parents to take her after the pool closed. And then, _Wally _had begged her parents to take _him, _because Starfire was really good at finding salamanders and fish and tadpoles—and catching them. Once, when Wally was ten, they carried a bunch of frogs home and showed them to Raven. She'd glared into the bucket for about half a second and then went back to her book.

Now, Wally was almost eighteen—and would still probably make Raven look at frogs if he had the chance, but the pond was frozen. And the layers of ice and frost clinging to the low fence that separated it from the road indicated just how much there wouldn't be frogs. He stepped over it fluidly, with the familiarity of countless summers and winters, shoes crunching up the dried, yellowed grass. Or at least, the stuff that looked like it might have been grass back when this place wasn't such a _freezer. _

"Hey, Cyborg!" he called out cheerfully. "Is it a bad thing when you can't feel your fingers?"

"You'll get used to it again," Vic answered when Wally had gotten close enough so he didn't have to yell. The heavy coat and the fading sunlight behind him made Vic look even more massive than he always did, and it was somehow reassuring.

His frame hid the tiny girl behind him so well that Wally didn't notice her until she moved her head a little and the hair gave her away. Terra blinked, then blinked again, then launched herself at Wally with a happy squeak, throwing her arms around his neck and sending them spinning around in something like a circle. It was kind of like picking up air; Terra was practically the same size that she'd been when Wally last saw her, and the high-pitched giggle when she pulled away from him and blushed was exactly the same.

"Hi," she said after an embarrassed pause. "I almost didn't believe Vic when he said you'd be here, but Vic never lies, so I had to—and you're here!" She straightened her fuzzy, blue hat and beamed at him.

"Oh, I'm here alright," Wally said, shivering and zipping up his jacket. "I'm here wishing you crazy people didn't live in Igloo-Land."

"You're so not." A familiar voice behind him, then something poking him in the side. Gar grinning up at him smugly as if he'd just played a really good prank on someone. "You _like_ it here."

"I like it here in the summer," Wally corrected. "Right now, I wish you'd all come to your senses and follow me back to Georgia."

Terra shrugged, dropping onto a log to pull on her skates. "Well, if we're cold, we should move, 'cos we were learning in physics how standing still makes you colder 'cos of…umm…I wasn't really taking notes."

"Naw, you were_ passing_ notes to _me," _said Gar, moving to sit beside Terra and taking over tying her laces for her.

Terra turned her chin downward to watch his fingers as she slowly took her own away.

"It's because your muscles need more oxygen when you're working, so your metabolic activity increases."

Wally didn't have to look to figure out who'd said _that._ Not like looking was a problem, of course. He turned around, finding Robin standing there as he'd expected, looking nervous in jeans and a thin, red jacket. And he _was_ nervous. He always started spouting science when he got nervous. Wally was starting to feel bad again.

"Hey," he said quietly, taking a tiny step towards Robin. "You ready?"

"I would be if I could get these on." Robin shrugged, glancing helplessly at the skates in his hands. They were really nice—and _definitely_ didn't look like they'd be owned by someone who didn't know how. But of course, everything Robin owned was really nice, so it wasn't that weird.

"I'll help!" Wally chirped, grabbing Robin's hands and leading him over to where Terra and Gar were sitting, mostly ignoring the bewildered look on his face. Robin sat at Wally's urging, and didn't even protest very much as Wally helped him with the skates.

The corner of Robin's mouth twitched a little when Vic asked him if the skates were the right size, voice oddly solemn. "I—I think so," he answered, then swallowed whatever he was going to say with a sigh that sounded halfway frustrated, halfway something else, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

Wally glanced up at Vic, raising a brow. "What?"

"C'mon, man, leave Robin alone. It's not his fault."

"I know that! I'm not trying to—" he began, but the rest of the complaint was drowned out by Terra's laughter as Gar chased her onto the ice—and then the indignant growl when she skidded and slipped, yanking him down after her in a heap of limbs and sparkling ice.

Wally grinned at Robin, helping him to his feet and continuing to hold both his hands for balance. At least, balance was one of the reasons—the need to keep Robin warm was another, because the boy was _so cold _and wasn't wearing gloves—and it made Wally's breath catch in his throat in a way that he hadn't felt in a long time…maybe hadn't ever felt—he'd liked Paul alright, and Jessica before him, but not like _this_…

He was yanked rudely out of his thoughts when he had to keep Robin from falling over backwards onto the ice, one hand dropping the other boy's to support him around the waist, reluctantly loosening when Robin regained his balance. Robin's breathing quickened, though he didn't seem _scared,_ exactly—or all that upset, now that he looked more closely.

But it was a pretty nice way to be rudely yanked, all things considered, so Wally didn't really care if some things didn't make sense.

"Hey, lean forward, okay?" he murmured, wondering why the others were just _leaving _Robin like this. It was really mean of them. He tentatively let go of Robin's waist, taking both his hands again loosely and gliding slowly backward.

"Trying," Robin grated out tersely, moving awkwardly after Wally at his urging, hands shaking—though that was probably from the cold since Robin wasn't afraid of anything. His eyes were locked on the ice, that odd, out-of-place smile still trying to seep out from the corners of his mouth, and Wally wished he had a photographic memory like Robin did so he'd never forget what it looked like the _one time_ Robin didn't know how to do something.

"Having fun yet, Robin?"

The voice startled him, and Wally glanced behind Robin briefly to see Raven and Starfire standing on the edge of the pond, Starfire with a bright purple scarf tied into her hair—the kind that you were supposed to wear around your neck, but she'd never been one for doing things the usual way.

"Yep." Robin slid his hands out of Wally's and turned with surprising ease to the girls. "You're late."

Raven shrugged, pointing at the girl who towered over her. _"This one_ thought it would be a cool idea to spend twenty minutes finding the right scarf."

"I did _not_ want to wear the hat!" Starfire protested, one hand on her hip. "It makes my hair stand up like Robin's."

Wally turned his gaze back to Robin, more specifically his hair, and decided that it could do anything it felt like doing.

Raven stepped onto the ice carefully, looking almost as uncomfortable as Robin, stumbled and grabbed Robin's elbow for support. For a second or two, it looked like Robin wasn't going to fall, and then he suddenly collapsed onto the ice, Raven wobbling but somehow managing to stay upright. It was a graceful kind of falling, for some reason. If it was possible to make a fall _pretty,_ Robin would have just done it.

But the fact that Robin had fallen became immediately more important than how pretty it was. Wally dropped to his knees beside the boy, a spray of ice from the sudden movement chilling him. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? Did you break something? Can you feel your toes?"

"Yes; no; and not for the last thirty minutes—but that's nothing new." He was leaning back slightly, palms flat against the ice, legs straight out in front of him.

Wally sighed in relief, turning to glare up at Raven. "Geez, don't _do _that; he doesn't know how!"

Raven took a long, controlled breath, then slowly exhaled. "You're absolutely right, Wally. I'm sorry, and I won't do it again." But then she lost her balance again, holding her arms out like an airplane about to crash. "Starfire? Little help here?"

Starfire's hand flew to her mouth, and then she was hurrying over to get to Raven, calling out frantic instructions about how to stay up—but Vic got there first, catching her under the arms and pulling her effortlessly to her feet, leaning so they were more or less at eye level, his calm voice a sharp contrast to her growing panic.

"Rae, shh, you're fine. Find your center of balance, remember?"

She nodded jerkily. "I hate sports. I _hate _sports."

"And I hate analyzing _Brave New World,"_ Vic answered, smiling at her. "I'm gonna let go now, okay?" He waited for a second jerky nod, then released her, though he stayed close to her side as they moved away to slowly circle the pond's edge.

Wally watched them for a few seconds, forehead wrinkling, and he knew he'd have something to ask Vic about in retaliation for the conversation they'd had last night involving Robin. Then, he went back to what was really important. "So," he said, offering his hand to Robin. "Want to try again?"

The look on his face reminded Wally of the time the swim team had gone to a water park, and Robin had been mad because they were missing practice. "Do I _have _to?"

"'Fraid so."

* * *

"Vic, come on; I'm cold!" 

"Alright, kiddo," he answered, gliding over to where Terra was hopping from one foot to the other on the grass, Gar standing next to her looking like he really wanted to do something about the fact that she was cold. Vic didn't go too fast, though; Raven was beside him, walking more than gliding, biting her lip in concentration.

Starfire untied the scarf from her hair and wrapped it around Terra's neck. "It's pretty, but not very useful as a hair ornament," she explained as she adjusted the material around Terra's jacket.

Raven collapsed onto the grass and began peeling off her skates as if they were infested with leeches. Once she'd pushed them a good distance away, she took a satisfied breath and glanced questioningly at the ice. "You coming, Robin?"

"Yeah, in a minute," he said absently. "You guys can go ahead; I'll meet you at Vic's house later."

"Oh no you won't." Wally pointed an admonishing finger at him. "You only just learned how to skate, and we are _not _leaving you out here by yourself, right, guys?" He glanced around him, expecting agreement, but found the others halfway to the cars parked at the top of the small hill.

"Umm, guys?" He grabbed his skates and chased after them, wishing that something would just make sense, just once tonight. "Okay, get back here, y'all, we _cannot _leave Robin!"

But Raven just whirled around to stare at him, a look of horror on her face as her keys hung limply from her hand. "You did _not _just say 'y'all.' I _know_ you didn't."

"I didn't—"

"Wally. Only Vic can say 'y'all'," Raven asserted. Beside her, Gar nodded in agreement.

He cursed under his breath. "Hey, you try living down there for six years and see if _you _don't—we are _not _leaving Robin!"

Terra giggled, earning her a strangely horrified look from Gar, and she was obviously trying very hard to stop, but it ended up turning into hiccups as she leaned her face into the side of Raven's car, shoulders shaking.

"I think he'll be okay," said Vic, guiding Terra into the back seat of his car as she clamped both hands over her mouth.

Wally looked at each of them in turn, not finding anything that would help him make sense of this. "But—this—what is going _on?"_

Vic patted him on the top of his head. It made him feel like a particularly stupid puppy. "It'll be fine. Why don't you just get in the car and follow me to my house, huh? We'll explain everything there." He glanced over his shoulder, frowned, and shut the car door, cutting off Gar and Terra's laughter.

Wally scowled and stomped over to his car, opening the door and dropping into the seat as he stared at the hill and wished he could see the pond from here. He waited exactly fifteen seconds.

He'd never been very good at waiting.

He was halfway down the hill when he realized. When everything about the past twenty-four made perfect sense—and yet didn't make sense at all, or if it made sense it didn't matter and he didn't care, and he stopped in mid-step because he didn't think he could run right now. Or walk. Walking would be stupid compared to this. Anything would be stupid compared to this.

Because either Wally was the best skating instructor who ever lived, or Robin had been lying.

The jeans were loose enough to allow freedom of movement, and oh god he was moving, except that wasn't good enough, you couldn't call this moving, it was—it was something, that was for sure, but Wally was too much of an idiot to figure out what to call it. He was _skating._ That was the best he could do. He felt himself moving forward; even though walking was stupid, he had to see this, _had to._

Robin's eyes were somehow focused on everything and nothing, the wind weaving with his hair as he banked a turn and sent an arc of ice shavings flying—and then _he _was flying as he did something with his foot and then spun into the air, and Wally let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when the boy landed, unwavering and confident and _perfect._ But more than that—if anything could be more, it was this—was his smile, not any kind of conscious expression, relaxed and just as natural as every movement he was making. The obsession, the single-mindedness, the tension and stress and demands for more—it wasn't there, was lost in the rhythm of blade against ice and the surrounding silence, in the fragments of orange sunset blanketing his shoulders.

Then, the unfocused eyes landed on Wally, and he flinched a little but slowed himself to a stop with the grace of a dancer, coming to rest a few feet away from Wally, who was standing at the edge of the ice and sincerely trying to get his mouth to close.

Since that wasn't going to happen, he decided to use it to say something. "You—you said you sucked!" Used it to say something very, very stupid, but anything would sound stupid after this, so it didn't really matter.

Robin smirked, arms crossing in front of his chest as he raised a questioning eyebrow. "I don't remember saying that."

"Jesus, Robin, you _did!"_

"Did not."

He considered, then swallowed with effort. "Okay, I guess, well, maybe you didn't _actually_—but you didn't try to stop me from acting like a moron and trying to teach you!"

Robin made a show of thinking about it. "Guilty."

Remembering the knowing glances, suppressed giggles, and sideways smiles, Wally was starting to realize just how much he'd been had. He sighed dramatically. "I guess I can let you guys pull one over on me every once in awhile; now all you have to do is get me like a billion more times, and you'll almost be even."

Robin started gliding over to where he'd left his shoes. "I can't wait," he answered, the sarcasm indicative of way too much time spent around Raven.

Raven who was definitely leaned against a tree, completely failing to keep her laughter under control. Well, the others were there, too, and laughing much harder than she was, but Wally had seen Raven laugh about ten times in his life.

Wally held out his hands in a gesture of defeat, grinning at where his friends were standing halfway up the hill. The grin turned sheepish when Gar pulled out a camera and snapped a picture, saying something about how they needed photographic evidence.

"This'll still be funny even when we're all ninety years old and sitting in our rocking chairs eating really bad jello, y'know," Gar asserted as he pocketed the camera.

Wally nodded solemnly. "Sadly, I have to agree. It's not every day my sharp perceptual skills fail me." He turned his attention to Robin, who was just standing there, blue-lipped, red-faced and trying not to smile. Firmly shoving away at least fourteen different emotions that were not exactly appropriate to bring up just now, Wally raised an eyebrow at him, shaking his head. "And you. Are a brat."

Robin flushed a deeper shade of red that almost matched his jacket. The jacket that was way too thin, that covered shoulders that were trembling visibly, and, god, he wanted to hold him and make him warm, but he couldn't do that because Robin would kill him, and then Raven would kill him more, so Wally stayed where he was and reminded himself that he hadn't done a very good job shoving those emotions away after all.

Fortunately, Vic wasn't quite as useless as he was. "A brat who's about to turn into an ice cube," he amended, shrugging off his letter jacket and wrapping it around Robin, rubbing his back as he guided him up the hill. "C'mon, you need to get out of this weather. A lot." He looked back over his shoulder, adding, "And so do the rest of you; I don't care how much Starfire never gets cold."

"Yeah, 'cos her body temperature runs at, like, two hundred degrees," Gar muttered as he stumbled up the hill.

The jacket swallowed Robin, and that was adorable enough to make Wally want to follow just so he could keep _looking_ at the boy, but Raven's hand shot out and grabbed his shoulder before he could get very far.

"Hey," she said calmly, eyebrows arched as far up her forehead as she could get them. "Just so you know. If you hurt him, I will kill you."

"I know," he grinned. "But I won't, so I'm not worried." He cast a sideways glance up the hill. "Now, about Vic…"

"That's not up for discussion," said Raven. "But don't hurt him. I don't want to kill you."

Then she spun and started up the hill without looking back, chin pointed down into the crumpled grass.

* * *

_Just as a quick notice, school is really, really busy this time of year, and I'm trying to make time for writing. Sensation & Perception lab is taking up most of my time, and in November I will be taking time out for National Novel Writing Month, so don't expect many updates next month. Thanks for being patient with me!_


	5. Hi, Pot, I'm Kettle

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Five: Hi, Pot. I'm Kettle.**

* * *

He hated parties. Even parties where most of the guests were within ten years of his age—which admittedly didn't happen very often. It had been an expectation since he was five to be pleasant, even though back then he spent most of the time in his room reading, and usually fell asleep long before Bruce came in to check on him. The lines and gestures were automatic now, drilled into him after years of practice, but it was always fake, at least for him. He was never quite sure if it was that way with Bruce. The man was so good at it that sometimes Robin wasn't even sure what was real.

This party wasn't like the rest, fortunately; the swim team had been coming over here for New Year's since Robin was eight, and he could almost get passed the reflexive reluctance when he reminded himself that these were his friends. It was easier, though he still didn't like it. It was a _party_. He kept half-expecting someone to appear behind him to gush about how much he'd grown.

"Wait, wait, pause. Why is the equilibrium...switching?"

"It's shifting, and it's because you increased the concentration of the reactants." He pointed to the equation. "See? It's really easy."

"Uh huh. Easy like J.D. Salinger and his potty mouth," Raven said dryly.

"You're the one who wanted to know why you got a C on the chemistry midterm," he pointed out. He'd learned this when he was ten, but Raven didn't need to know that.

"I already know why I got a C; that wasn't my question. I got a C because Mrs. Hollings was too distracted with her baby to pay very much attention when she was grading the assignments. Whoever takes over won't be distracted. And then I will have an F."

A hand fell on Robin's shoulder, Bruce leaning over to whisper, "No textbooks, Robin."

He turned to look up at the man. "But she was asking—"

"Robin. Put it away." Then Terra latched on to Bruce's arm and pulled him over to Gar and Kitten, talking ninety miles an hour about debate.

Robin shrugged helplessly at Raven. "Sorry; you know he hates it when I read instead of being 'sociable'."

"My fault," she said, rising from her seat and holding an arm out to him. "I'll take that for you; I'm the one who made you go fish out your copy of Chemistry for Toddlers."

Robin stood up with her, keeping his grip on the book. "It's fine; I'll be right back." It would be quiet upstairs, and he wouldn't refuse five minutes of quiet.

He put the book away—Raven had been almost right; it belonged near the bottom of a drawer he rarely opened, and he hadn't looked at it for years—told himself that Bruce would be really mad if he stayed in here, and reluctantly closed his door again, starting down the long hallway.

He didn't get very far.

The perfume was almost more noticeable than the tall girl blocking his path, black hair hanging over one shoulder to half-obscure her shirt. If you could call that blinding, glittery strip of fabric a shirt. It smelled vaguely like flowers soaked in cleaning solution. Twenty-molar cleaning solution. And the look in the girl's eyes wasn't exactly settling, as a smile crept onto her face that was entirely different from all of Starfire's smiles.

"Playing hide and seek, jailbait?" Komand'r asked slowly, one hand on her hip, the other only missing Robin's waist by a few inches because he stepped backwards at the last moment. "'Cos if you are, I found you."

For some reason, his mind flashed irrationally, uselessly to ten years ago when Terra and Vic had decided to play hide and seek here, and it had taken them two hours to find Terra because she'd gotten stuck in one of the laundry chutes… He coughed and backed away further. "I should—I mean—Bruce wants me downstairs."

Komand'r stepped after him, moving forward in perfect rhythm as she continued calmly, "But what do _you _want, Robin? Hmm? Or have you never really thought about it because you're too busy trying to do what _he_ wants?"

The next backwards step found him pressed against a painting, and Komand'r giggled smugly as she settled a hand on either side of his hips. He flinched at the contact, heart beating faster as his throat tightened, eyes flickering over her shoulder to try and figure out the best way to run.

One of Komand'r's hands left his side, and the momentary relief melted away when she instead used it to cup his cheek. "You didn't answer me, jailbait. What do _you _want?"

"I—I want you to stop. Now." He pushed her hand away, eliciting another smug giggle.

"Of course you do," she agreed, widening her eyes innocently and nodding as if she were humoring him. The perfume smell was about to make him gag. Leaning closer, her hand returned to his face. "Hmm. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed…"

Eyes widening in horror, he took a breath and shoved her aside, thanking years of pushups and weightlifting that it was easy—because he hadn't been quite sure if he had enough strength at that moment to so much as swim a fifty butterfly. Hands shaking and legs fluid and wobbly, he stumbled down the hall, hoping against hope that Komand'r would decide not to follow him.

He'd just leaned a hand against the banister of the south wing's staircase when someone touched his elbow. Robin flinched and swung around, all the air leaving his lungs, the thought of yelling for help more terrifying than having to face whatever Komand'r wanted…

"Robin, woah, your eyes are bigger than Starfire's are normally—what _happened?"_

But it wasn't her, and he should have known because of the lack of that ridiculous perfume. He blinked up at Wally and shook his head. "What are you doing up here?"

Wally shrugged. "Trying to find you." Warm hands covered Robin's, thumbs rubbing the undersides of his wrists, and Robin's breathing slowed for a moment before he realized what was going on and tried to pull away. Wally didn't let him. "Hey, hey, it's fine, you're okay. You're okay, Robin."

His voice was a thousand shades more soothing than it had any right to be, but Wally had always been like that, had that effect on everyone—he'd just forgotten all the times Wally had known exactly what to say to someone before a race, whether it was a terrified six-year-old or Robin himself. Finally, he relaxed his arms and let Wally hold his hands, and the boy smiled and asked again, "What happened?"

"Umm…it's…" He flushed and bit his lip, _really_ not wanting to advertise what had just happened between him and Komand'r. She was unpleasant, sure, but she was surrounded by a perpetual harem of guys, and if anyone knew that he'd—tried to get her to stop— "Koma just wanted—"

"That _bitch!" _Wally snapped, blue eyes flashing with anger.

Robin raised an eyebrow. "I didn't even tell you what she did."

"As if you need to," he said, rolling his eyes. "Shrew's been after you since I got back, and probably longer. Seriously, Robin, she's bad news; if she's bothering you, tell Coach Bruce."

He felt the blush deepen, made worse by the fact that he was absolutely aware of it and couldn't stop it. "I am _not _telling Bruce!"

"So she _is_ bothering you," he said calmly.

"Wally?"

"You can't just let her intimidate you like that—"

_"Wally!"_

"She's just using you, and it's disgusting, and the girl almost got sent to _prison_ that time when she was sixteen and framed Starfire for bombing mailboxes—"

Robin sighed painfully, disentangling himself from the other boy and turned his head up briefly to stare at the ceiling. "Wally, she's right behind you."

Wally shrugged, turned around, and looked straight at Komand'r as if daring her to call him on it. "Yeah, and you know what, it's _true,_ and I can say it to your face as easily as I can say it to him."

She blinked mascara-swathed eyes, brows knitting together in complete shock—but Komand'r didn't stay completely shocked for very long. "Oh, I'm using him and it's disgusting, huh?" She stepped forward, face inches from Wally's, smile crawling across her face like a spider. "Hi there, Pot. I'm Kettle. Nice to meet you."

"Excuse me?"

She paused, head tilting to the side as her eyes focused on the top of one of the white columns at the foot of the stairs, expression losing focus as if she was stringing the perfect words together for this. Finally, she took a breath and stepped around Wally, ignoring him when he tried to keep her from getting near Robin. "So jailbait. Thought you might like to know that your little friend here's been perving on you ever since he got back."

He stared at her silently, uncomprehending.

"I know it's a lot to take in," she continued, voice dripping sympathy, "But yep, that's how it is. Shoulda known he was a fag when he wasn't interested in _me_."

"He…wait…_what?"_

Komand'r nodded solemnly. "Wally West. Gayer than springtime, I'm afraid. Thinking nasty thoughts about you while you swim. And believe me, I know what that looks like, seeing as how I think them myself." She sighed, shaking her head. "Probably been all nice to you this whole time 'cos he was hoping to get in your pants." Turning her attention to Wally, she pointed an admonishing finger at him. "And really, sicko: at least I'm up front about what I want. And at least I have the right equipment."

Mouth dry, Robin forced himself to keep breathing, Wally's silence more than indicating that Komand'r was at least partially right—and how—why—this wasn't happening. It was some really insane nightmare.

The girl put one hand on her hip, leaning in a way that exposed her midriff. "If you need me, I'll be downstairs. You wouldn't happen to know where your old man keeps the booze, would you?"

"I—he doesn't—_no!"_

Komand'r sighed. "Guess I'll have to go looking myself." She winked at Robin over her shoulder before sashaying down the stairs. "Hope you two work this out."

Her footsteps echoing in his ears so loudly that they were almost painful, Robin forced himself to look at Wally, who was shaking his head, eyes wide in horror.

"Look, Robin, she's an idiot—you _know that,_ right? I would—I would _never_—I haven't been using you, okay?" His voice was soft and uncertain, maybe even a little scared, and Wally was never scared.

"But she's right, isn't she? You do? I mean you…you want…you _do?"_

Wally appeared halfway into the act of a denial, then he seemed to realize something, and stopped. "If you mean am I interested in you, yes, I am. If you mean was I just being nice to you so I could sleep with you, hell no. C'mon, Robin, you know me better than that."

"I know; I—I meant the first thing," he said. And it was true: every rational part of his mind screamed that Komand'r was making that part up, though the rest wasn't exactly a calming thought either. Robin hadn't really considered dating, period: Vic had been with Danielle for six months their junior year, and everyone saw how well that turned out, and moreover Wally was a _boy,_ and Robin didn't _like _boys.

"So. Yeah," Wally said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, though he mostly looked worried, not embarrassed. "Kinda bad way to ask you out, huh? But listen, if you're not busy sometime before school starts—"

Robin shook his head, trying to force his heartbeat to return to normal as he edged around Wally and started towards his room. "I'm sorry, but I just…I need to think about this for awhile."

"Yeah, I understand. It's fine. Robin?"

He turned his head reluctantly. "Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry. Seriously. I wasn't going to tell you like this."

Robin nodded and kept walking, didn't stop till he'd gotten to his room, closed the door behind him, and collapsed onto the bed, listening to his breathing as he stared out the window, iron gate looming in the distance, the snow highlighted by floodlights.

Five minutes later, the door opened again, and he jumped and turned towards it, momentary relief that it wasn't Komand'r or Wally immediately drowned by the fact that it was Bruce.

"What are you doing?"

Robin considered the question, mind racing. The real answer was, of course, that he wasn't doing anything he was supposed to be doing, and there were other answers that he definitely couldn't give Bruce. Ever. Somehow, he had to figure this thing out on his own. He propped himself up with his palms and offered a hesitant, "I was just—"

"Are you dying? Is the house on fire?" Bruce demanded, cutting him off with the voice he used to chastise six-year-olds who'd been running on the pool deck.

Robin blinked and shook his head.

"Then get out of your bed, fix your shirt, and come downstairs. Now." He held up a hand when Robin opened his mouth to try and explain. "No, don't tell me why you were up here, don't tell me what you were doing. I don't want to hear it."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, running a hand roughly through his hair. "I don't want—"

"This is not about what you want," Bruce interrupted again, the disapproval in his eyes clearly visible. "This is about leaning to get along with people—and being a responsible host. Downstairs. _Immediately,_ Robin."

"I—I'm sorry, sir." He'd been in worse trouble before, though as of the moment, he couldn't think of any—whenever Bruce was angry at him, it always seemed like the worst time, somehow—but the man was definitely angrier than he'd been in awhile. Robin swallowed, forcing air into his lungs as he got up and followed Bruce out of the room. He didn't say another word to him as they headed back to the party.

* * *

I apologize for the long wait with this chapter; I'm working on NaNoWriMo (link to my story in my profile), and it's definitely the darkest thing I've ever written (those who've read Bright Line/Cognitive Dissonance, make what you want of that…). Which means it's taking awhile for me to write it, and taking a lot out of me. This chapter was written pre-NaNo, so don't expect another until probably well after November's end, though six is halfway done, and there is a slight chance I'll find time to finish it sooner. I'm really not in a mood where I can write happiness, though. I love the light-heartedness of this story and can't wait to get back into it post-NaNo; thanks for your continued patience! PS: The chapter title Avea. She said it last spring, and I laughed a lot. 


	6. Boys and Wet Socks

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Six: Boys and Wet Socks

* * *

**

Terra always had to convince herself that she wanted to swim. She liked it after she'd gone down the pool a few times, but she always had to make herself peel her clothes off and shove her boots and coat inside a locker. It wasn't that she didn't want to swim, not really.

It was mostly her hair.

Her hair didn't always look good, and it seemed like it decided to be especially cooperative whenever she had swim practice. Like today, when Starfire had braided a ribbon into it during math class (Starfire was really good at hair, though she didn't have to be because hers was just amazing on its own). She looked at her reflection in the mirror, sighing as she told her hands to untie the ribbon and shake the braid free. Jumping into the water on a good hair day was just wrong.

And besides, it was _cold_. It was cold outside, in the locker room, and in the water. The only place where it wasn't cold was the pool deck, and that didn't count because it smelled gross and sometimes made her head hurt. She shoved her bag under the counter next to Starfire's and wished for summer and hot concrete and a fresh breeze against her face. Pushed open the door to the school's pool and cringed into the chlorine. Chlorine reminded her way too much of chemistry class. They had just learned about it, and how it had—well, it had some kind of number, and it was a negative one, whatever that was, and it meant that it went together with things that were a positive one like sodium, and—Terra _hated _Mr. Luthor. A lot. It was only the first week back from break, and he'd already given them a whole chapter to read. And a quiz on the first day that Terra had failed. She really wished their old teacher hadn't left to have a baby.

But she liked Coach Clark. A lot. And not because she liked swimming, either.

She tugged on Starfire's bathing suit strap, snapping it against her back. "Think you can put the ribbon back in my hair after practice?" she asked, falling into step beside her.

"That will be difficult when you hair is wet," Starfire observed with a doubtful look.

"Ugh, I'm _so_ drying it. Hoping that I can make it look half as good as it does now." She really didn't want to get in the water. It was going to be so _cold, _and looking out the huge windows to see the layer of dirty snow covering the hill only made it worse

They were a little bit late, she realized when she noticed the circle of kids around Coach Clark, who was halfway-sitting on the middle starting block, explaining something. Hopefully not explaining warm-up.

She could hear Gar's insistent voice over the others, and Terra immediately felt fluttery and happy; she'd been hoping he'd be at practice today. "But it's not fair! He can't just give us a quiz on the _first day_ and _grade it_ and stuff!"

"I think you need to take that up with Mr. Luthor," said Coach Clark.

"But he won't listen, and maybe if you—"

"Trust me, you don't want my help," the man said with an apologetic smile. "I made a C in chemistry."

Kitten's mouth fell open. "You did not!"

"Did, too," he shot back. "I analyze literature, not reactions, and the only compounds I like are compound sentences."

Terra tried to imagine Coach Clark in school, not knowing the answer to a question and feeling like a moron—like she'd felt today when Mr. Luthor had made her stand up and name all the halogens, and she didn't even know what a halogen _was. _It didn't work; her brain couldn't put being bad at something together with the way Coach Clark's eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled. He just couldn't be bad at anything.

Gar sighed heavily. "But he's making us write lab reports—_every week_. And we have to—"

Coach Clark looked past him and smiled at Terra and Starfire (maybe just Terra…she hoped), rising to his feet decisively. "Hey, the dynamic duo's here; looks like we can start."

He was answered with a groaning noise that came from everywhere and nowhere—the kind where you couldn't tell who'd started it.

"There's _snow_ on the ground," Roy stated, pointing out the window as if that explained everything. "You want us to swim when there's snow on the ground. That's just wrong."

Coach Clark pretended to think about it, following Roy's finger and looking at the white swirled with muddy red as if it were a poem. "Well, okay, you don't have to swim." He turned back to the circle of kids, more than half of them wearing expressions of hope, most of the hope fading away when they saw the smirk. "We can do dry-land instead."

_"No!"_

The words made her just as sick as "take out a pencil and put your books away." Maybe worse. Because dry-land meant pushups and crunches and lunges and who knows what else, and sometimes running if it was warm enough, and she hated it even more than butterfly.

Everybody had protested except for Starfire, who shrugged and said, _"I_ like dry-land." She could do pushups forever, every movement strong and natural, her hair up in a thick, red ponytail and brushing the floor every time she went down like some kind of really pretty mop. It was almost funny until you remembered that her pushup record was one hundred and fourteen.

"Yeah, we know: you like everything. But not all of us enjoy torture," said Kitten, glaring at her.

"Then maybe you should get in the water and give me 300 freestyle, 200 non-freestyle." It was hard to be annoyed at Coach Clark when he was grinning like that.

Kitten scowled. _"That's_ torture."

"Swimming or pushups. Pick your poison," Coach Clark said cheerfully.

Wally sighed dramatically. "What was it again?"

"300 free, 200 non-free," he repeated, voice shifting into seriousness as he stood and stepped away from the blocks, looking more like a coach and less like somebody who'd maybe gotten a C in chemistry. "First group, leaving on the top."

Terra cringed and reluctantly pulled her cap on over her hair, trying not to think about how long it would take to dry it as she glanced over at the pace clock to see how much longer they had till the needle was pointed straight up. Forty seconds till the sixty.

She tentatively sat down on the side of lane three because that was the lane Starfire was in, slipping her feet into the water and shuddering. "You're going first," she said to the other girl, who was already in the water, floating on her back.

Starfire shook her head. "No, he is." She pointed over her head, where Robin was tightening his goggles.

Great. Just great. Terra hated being in Robin's lane. "Can we _please _move?" she whispered, leaning a little further into the water so she could say it closer to Starfire's ear.

Starfire pulled her head out of the water, one arm draped casually over the lane rope. "I like Robin," she pointed out.

"You like _everybody,_ though," Terra grated out as she pried her fingers off the bar under the starting block, hissing against the cold. Robin always lapped her, and he got really mad when she didn't follow every single rule perfectly, and he never said a word. Ever. Mostly because he was always breathing too hard to talk. And swimming with him was awful; he treated every lap like it was the most important race of his life, and it made Terra tired just watching.

But then the needle got to the sixty, and Robin dove into the water, muscles tense and rigid, the splash catching Terra in the face and making her squeak out a protest even though he was already underwater.

It was going to be a long practice.

* * *

"I hate fly. I hate it like I hate Mr. Luthor. But do you know the one thing I hate more than fly?"

"What?"

Gar tossed a glare at the center lane. "Watching Robin being _good_ at fly."

"Ugh, I _know."_ Terra nodded vigorously. "It's like, you're already tired from trying to drag yourself down the pool four times anyway, and then you have to look at him being all _perfect._ And not even tired. And it's just gross." She adjusted her towel so that it fell around her shoulders like a cape. A yellow cape with blue flowers on it.

"Naw, what's gross is that he's still in the pool, and he's been finished with the workout for ten minutes" Gar said, rolling his eyes. "I'm hanging around to watch Coach drag him out. That'll be funny."

"Guys, leave him alone." And the voice didn't make any sense with the tone or the words, because Wally never wanted to leave anybody alone, and he never said things in that half-sad, quiet way that reminded Terra of how Raven would speak when she was a little kid. But when Terra turned to look, it was definitely Wally who'd said it. Wally who'd hardly slowed down to talk to them on his way to the locker room.

"But he's crazy!" Gar shot back, looking to Terra for agreement. "It's just like Chemistry. He's in the smart-people class, but he doesn't think it's hard at all, and he doesn't even think that that crazy new teacher is mean—and he won't tell us his grades, but I know he makes like a 300 on every test."

"You're better than him at video games," Wally said flatly, eyes focused on the bulletin board of time standards for upcoming meets.

"That's only 'cos I…" Gar blinked at him. "Wait. What's up with you lately? You always want to pick on him and stuff."

Wally's attention was wedged somewhere between the Regionals cutoff for the 200 meter breaststroke and the incipient argument between Coach Clark and Robin. It definitely wasn't on Gar or Terra. Or on giving a good answer, either, because he shrugged and muttered, "I just want…" He trailed off, the half-sentence a fingerprint of one of those thoughts that runs through your head but you never have the courage to express.

Then shook his head, settling back into a tone that sounded somewhat normal on him, "Think I'm gonna get some pizza. Or fries. Pizza and fries. With the little pickle-and-mustard halo that Starfire likes to put on everything. You guys want to come?"

Gar raised an eyebrow at Terra, questioning, and her heart beat faster as she tried to make herself think about what her parents would say, if she had any homework to do, if she'd cleaned her room like her mother had asked that morning. Well. The bed was made, anyway, and she'd shoved _most_ of her dirty clothes in the closet under her coats. And the only homework she had was for Mr. Luthor. Which was worth thinking about before she decided not to do it. No matter how amazing Gar's hair was.

"We—umm—we have to do those problems for Chemistry, you know…" she began, almost as if stating it would make her less guilty for not doing it.

Gar wrinkled his nose. "You mean he _asked_ us to do the problems. I'm not doing anything for the guy who embarrasses you in front of the whole class, Terra."

The words wrapped around her like a towel fresh out of the dryer after she'd had to swim a 200 butterfly. "I guess maybe if we only stayed for a little while…"

"Yeah, I'll help you guys with your work," Wally offered, some of the energy that Terra always associated with him returning. But only some. And it seemed…fake, somehow. Like there was something underneath it. "Besides, homework's easier if you have other people to help you."

Terra tossed her kickboard into the bin. "Isn't that sort of cheating?"

"Not if nobody else tells you the answers," Wally said. "'Kay, we'll meet you in the lobby, Terra. Don't take six years to wash your hair."

She blushed, not really wanting to talk about hair in front of Gar. Boys didn't need to know how much time you spent on your hair—especially if you were spending it for _them_. What she wanted to say was a snappy comeback about how she'd spend six years drying it, not washing it. What she actually said was, "I'll—umm—try not to. Or something. Yeah. See ya!" Accompanied by a very un-snappy giggle. And stubbing her toe on the locker room door as she waved stupidly at the boys and finally managed to drag the door closed behind her.

She was doomed. Completely doomed.

The first thing that she noticed was a big, familiar smile, Starfire looking strange with her towel wrapped around her head like a turban. "Where are you going?"

"Umm. Nowhere." Terra stared at her toes as she reached into her swim bag for her shampoo.

A finger crossed her line of vision, beckoning her gaze upward, back to Starfire's cheerful face, to the green eyes that were suppressing a giggle. Eyes shouldn't be able to giggle, but Starfire's did. "I think you could be very happy with Gar." She wrinkled her nose, gaze shifting to the floor as she added incongruously, "Oh, now my socks are wet."

And Starfire _would _be able to talk about wet socks in practically the same breath as she talked about liking boys. She didn't have boyfriends, just went on dates (and happily told Terra which ones she liked, which ones didn't smile at her "the right way," and which ones she was seeing again). Terra didn't think she could do that—and oh god, was _this_ a date?

"I didn't say that I was going…anywhere. With Gar." She rinsed the shampoo out of her hair, wishing that it didn't look so gross now, then wishing that she had time to dry it—but she didn't because then Gar would get annoyed at her for being slow... "I mean. Yeah," she finished, for some reason unable to remember what she'd been saying in the first place.

"No, but you did not need to," Starfire called back to her. "I wish I had a dry sock."

You didn't talk about boys and socks at the same time; you just _didn't._ Terra switched off the water, for some reason angry at whoever had invented socks.

They didn't talk anymore until she was almost finished dressing, mostly because Terra was too embarrassed to think of anything good to say. Starfire waited for her to change, sitting on the counter with her legs swinging beneath her. Finally, Terra managed to offer, "Do you want to come with us?"

"If I did, you would talk to me, not him," Starfire said, gaze both certain and gentle. "And the best way to get to know him is to talk to him."

"But I don't want to talk to him _alone!"_

"Wally was the one who suggested it; I heard him. I highly doubt that you will be alone. In any case, I have to clean the garage with Koma tonight."

"Eww!" Terra tied the laces on her shoes, standing up to slither into her coat. "On the garage and on being that close to Koma. I'm not sure which is worse, actually."

Starfire shrugged. "She doesn't come home from college much—I am going to try to get to know her better." But the tightness of her lips meant that she had no interest in getting to know her at all.

"Ugh, well call me if you need help, okay?" Terra said as she pushed open the locker room door. Not that she really wanted to spend the evening with Komand'r, but Starfire was her best friend, and that meant it was her job to clean garages with evil sisters if she needed to.

Gar and Wally were staring at the fish tank when they got to the lobby, with Wally a lot more focused on it than he was usually focused on anything, for some reason. Gar was the first one to notice them. "Hey!" he said, nudging Wally, who took a moment to look up and nod, eyes strangely vacant.

Terra grinned. She hoped it was a cool grin. "Hey," she echoed, pretending to adjust her scarf around her neck.

"So. Umm. Is everyone ready? Is Starfire coming?" Gar asked, seeming grateful to have someone else to focus on besides Terra, which made her feel kind of sick. If he didn't want to look at her because he thought she was gross, or something, she would just about die.

Starfire shook her head. "Maybe another time." And Terra knew that the look she sent over Gar's shoulder was only for her.

"Alright, I've been watching this goldfish swim for the past ten minutes, and that's ten minutes too long. Let's get out of here!" Wally put one hand on Terra's back and the other on Gar's, ushering them out the door. "Hey, did you know that a goldfish has a three second memory? That must be weird. So they're swimming along and they're like, 'Oh look, a castle!...Oh look, a castle!' Forever."

It was dark outside, and the wind blew into her eyes in a way that made her squint as soon as Wally opened the door. He let got of the Terra and Gar to look for his keys, and Terra looked at the ground, trying not to focus on how close her feet were to Gar's.

"So," she said, trying to pry her eyes up to his face. And failing.

"So." And his eyes might have been on her shoes, too, but she couldn't tell. Because she was looking at _his_ shoes. And oh god, she was stupid, this day was stupid, everything about her life was stupid—except for Gar's shoes, for some reason. They were red and had smudges of dirt scuffs across the toes and one of the laces was missing, and they were the nicest shoes she'd ever seen in her life.

She wasn't sure if shivery bumps on her arms were because of the cold, or because of Gar's fingers wrapping hesitantly around hers.

* * *

_I'm…really sorry, guys. I've been working on NaNo, and just busy with finals and frustrated with writer's block and a lot of other problems. I hope this chapter lives up to expectation. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and that those in school continue to enjoy their break! Thank you all so much for your support!_


	7. Anal Phase

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Seven: Anal Phase**

* * *

Robin was not distracted.

In the first place, he didn't have time: Regionals was next month, there were two qualifier meets before that, and he was reasonably sure that the new Chemistry teacher hated him. The last didn't really matter, of course; Mr. Luthor's opinions of him were irrelevant as far as the exam was concerned, as far as things more important than the exam were concerned—but he still didn't like it, and being distracted wouldn't help matters. So by all rights, he shouldn't be having trouble focusing—or at least with forcing himself to focus—on the lecture, and _not_ on the same ridiculous events that he hadn't been able to stop replaying in his head since the party. Since Komand'r and going upstairs and her nauseating perfume and—

"Hey. Robin. You get number twenty?"

He jumped at the whisper, turning slightly after a moment of indecision to look sideways at Jinx, who was angling several crumpled sheets of paper in his direction, an utterly atypical amount of desperation in her eyes. He stared at the assignment, reminded himself what number twenty was, why it was more important than Wally's conversation with him, what he'd asked, and the worries and thoughts and interpretations and everything else he couldn't shut out.

"Later," he muttered, turning back to the front of the room.

"But I just—when you doubled the sodium carbonate, is it still—"

_"Later." _

Jinx made a half-strangled noise, and the sound of a notebook slamming shut made him glance at her again, just in time to see her put her head on her desk, pink hair drooping over her shoulder. To see Vic edge the notebook closer to him, tilt open the cover, and offer a quiet explanation.

An explanation that wasn't quiet enough.

"What is so exciting back there?"

Mr. Luthor's serious, intense gaze made Robin want to crawl under the desk, but he settled on shaking his head. "Nothing, sir."

The man looked from Vic to Robin to Jinx, though it somehow seemed that he was mostly focused on Robin, the dry erase marker in his hand almost like a weapon, somehow. "See that it stays that way."

He nodded, silently, feeling Mr. Luthor's eyes on him as he continued the lecture. The material was easy, but it was always easy—the problem was that it had never really _bothered_ Robin in the way that it did now. It _shouldn't _be easy, he'd started to realize; he shouldn't be accepting the other students' responsibilities as his _only _responsibilities. Which he wasn't. Not anymore, not after the third day of class when he'd felt so inadequate after something Mr. Luthor said about living up to your potential that he'd met with the man after class and asked for extra work. His mind shifted involuntarily from the basic rate equations on the board to the reading he'd been given. Robin couldn't decide if not understanding half of it made him feel better for finally challenging himself or worse for not understanding something in the first place.

However, he did know _exactly_ how he felt about the potential distractions from what was really important. Namely that he wouldn't allow it to happen. Disease was destroying lives every second, disease that could be stopped, and he was _not _going to waste his time worrying about what some boy had said to him at a stupid party. It wasn't important, couldn't ever be. And furthermore, Wally was a boy, and Robin wasn't gay, so he couldn't possibly—

If they didn't address it eventually, though, well—they had to address it, eventually.

"Mr. Grayson?"

His head shot up from where it had been thoroughly buried in his notes, though his eyes hadn't been focused on anything. "Yes, sir?" he managed to force out, hoping that whatever he'd been asked was something he'd be able to discern from the board. The reaction written there was clearly second-order, though Mr. Luthor could have meant the graph…

"Is the concentration too difficult for you to calculate, or do you simply find the area under your desk more interesting than the area under the curve?"

Robin flinched, finally understanding what was being asked, managing to quiet the silent criticisms long enough to solve the problem. "2.5 molar," he said hesitantly, after a long moment, checking the math in his head as soon as he'd registered Mr. Luthor's reaction. The slow, subtle disappointment that meant he was wrong.

Mr. Luthor calmly pointed to the first reactant with his marker, though there was something vaguely threatening underneath the gesture that Robin couldn't identify. "If I had been asking about the chlorine, that would have been an acceptable answer. Now, for the lithium bromide, if you wouldn't mind."

"Five molar. Sorry." Face hot, he couldn't bring himself to meet Mr. Luthor's eyes. He'd guessed, and obviously guessed wrong, but he hadn't been sure which one was being referred to—and he would have been if he'd just been _listening_.

Eyes wide, Jinx poked Vic in the shoulder, indicating Robin as if she'd just realized he was a dead fish. "Holy crap. He just did that _in his head_," she whispered, not very quietly.

Mr. Luthor's expression hardened, a familiar edge entering his voice as he interjected, "Most of you are likely capable of multiplying by the coefficients of each species, yes. To continue our discussion, Mr. Stone, if you would be so kind as to derive the third-order integrated rate law on the board…" He nodded expectantly, offering the marker to Vic.

"That's not what I meant." Jinx's whisper, now much lower, was accompanied the touch to his elbow when he didn't respond. "Duh, you can multiply by '2.' You did that whole _problem_ in your _head,_ and he doesn't even _care._"

Robin shrugged, turned back to the board and kept his gaze there, wondering how long Mr. Luthor was going to force Vic to struggle with the Calculus, relief escaping him when Vic got all but the third step on his own.

Of course Mr. Luthor didn't care. Robin didn't care, either. It was irrelevant how quickly he could do high school Chemistry when people were struggling to solve problems that actually _mattered._

And he certainly didn't care about doing rate equations in his head when Mr. Luthor expected the next three chapters of the textbook read by the end of this week, all the even numbered problems answered, and for Robin to have "intelligent questions" about the drug research he'd been given.

* * *

"You're late, biscuit."

He jerked his head up from his notebook, gripped with some irrational worry that the statement had been meant for him, even though he'd been in his seat for the past three minutes. But he was struck by the irrational certainty that it was one more thing he'd missed—he couldn't concentrate on _anything _anymore.

Ms. Quinzel tucked a pen behind her ear as she shook her head at Wally reproachfully. If it was possible to be cheerful while shaking your head reproachfully, that is. "Not a great way to start out the year, but we'll give you a free pass for being new, huh?" She grinned.

Robin was so focused on hoping that Wally wouldn't sit by him—and appalled by the little thread of hope that he _would, _which he quickly squashed and concluded that he had no idea whatsoever what he wanted—that he didn't notice he had the wrong notebook until Wally finally took a seat across the room, and he was able to look down into an equation that took up over half a page. An equation that absolutely did not belong in psychology class.

Not that Robin was actually sure what _did_ belong in psychology class, now that he thought about it—from what he's seen so far, he didn't really understand it and didn't care to. But if he had to hazard a guess, Ms. Quinzel herself would not make the short list. Unless she was supposed to be serving as an example of insanity.

The only differences between her coaching behavior and her teaching behavior were her hairstyle and the fact that they weren't permitted to call her by her first name. Technically. She probably wouldn't have cared. In the summer, her blonde hair was perpetually kept in two high pigtails—which she yanked tighter whenever she got bored—but she usually refrained from that during school.

Usually.

She'd transferred recently from an elementary school, but Robin hadn't been here long enough to really know the details. He didn't need the details of her relocation; he already knew her far too well from far too many summers of her playing pranks on Bruce and giggling, occasionally accompanied by Coach Ivy. He didn't get it. Would never understand why it was appropriate to act like a six-year-old in a professional environment.

Of course, he thought as she switched on the overhead projector, maybe the entire point was that it _wasn't_ appropriate.

"So who wants to hear about sex?" she asked cheerfully, grin growing just a little too wide.

A few hands rose around him. The general reaction was a poorly-suppressed snicker. Robin looked down at his desk, realized that he _still_ had the wrong notebook out, and furiously corrected the error.

"Thought so," said Ms. Quinzel as she dimmed the lights, strolling back to a high stool beside the projector and dropping into it, legs crossed. "Which is good. Because we talk about sex a lot in this class. You'll probably talk about sex a lot on your exam. It's gonna be oodles of fun."

Robin took a controlled breath, having already decided that 'it' was going to be anything but fun. He didn't want to be here, but Raven had convinced him to sign up—and he probably wouldn't be able to get the college credit for this one without taking the class. Assuming, of course, that they were going to actually learn anything that mattered.

"So this Freud guy, he was one crazy kid. Basically thought that we're all motivated by two things: sex and anger." She paused as if she'd just realized something important. "Which, come to think of it, makes him a little less crazy than people say. Yep." Releasing a barely audible sigh, she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, expression clouding visibly even in the dim light, and Robin wondered if she'd forgotten what she was going to say next. If she'd ever had a plan for what to say in the first place, of course, which didn't seem likely.

Then, suddenly focused, she turned back to the projector and stabbed it with her pen so sharply that Kitten jumped. "So! There's five stages that Freud says we go through during our development, and he called 'em psychosexual…umm…stages. That's them right there." She stabbed the projector again, long fingernails magnified like claws on the screen behind her.

Robin would have preferred the claws to what was written on the transparency.

Writing the words was far more difficult of a task than it had any right to be. Robin forced himself to imagine chemical symbols in their place—he just wanted to go back to Chemistry instead of being here; Chemistry made _sense_—and then focused on not looking at his notebook again.

"And so when there's something wrong with your head and you go all crazy like my ex-boyfriend, Freud thought it was 'cos something went wrong in one of those stages. Any questions?" She looked around the room expectantly, straightening her red and black plaid skirt.

"_Anal phase?_"It was more of a choking noise than a question, Roy's eyes fixed on the screen as he fought to keep from hiding behind his binder. He was answered by a sprinkling of poorly-suppressed giggles.

Ignoring him, Kitten leaned forward eagerly in her chair. "What about your boyfriend?"

"One at a time, one at a time!" Ms. Quinzel grinned. "Yep, anal phase. S'when your id gets pleasure from bowel elimination. That can be bad. If you have an anal fixation, you might start folding your socks and putting them in alphabetical order by color or somethin'."

From across the room, Wally caught Robin's gaze with the first genuine smile he'd worn in over a week, then he seemed to remember something and deflated, though the downcast expression was quickly replaced by smirking at the projector, breaking into a laugh at something the girl behind him had said. It upset Robin, he was horrified to discover, in some unidentifiable way that he wasn't even sure was real.

Roy's gasping cough mercifully brought him out of his thoughts. "Wait, so…umm…_everybody_ has it? The…umm…the _phase?"_

"Guess so!" Ms. Quinzel chirped, balancing a foot on one of the unoccupied desks in the front row. "If you're a Freudian, anyway."

Roy leaned back in his chair, as if he wanted to put just a little more distance between himself and the words on the screen. "Can I…_not_ be a Freudian? _Please?"_

Ms. Quinzel shrugged. "I dunno. Your id might have something to say about that."

Roy looked even more upset. "Umm…_id_…wait, what's—"

"And my _ex-_boyfriend?" she continued forcefully, turning to Kitten and rolling her eyes, seeming to have completely forgotten about the previous conversation. "We'll talk more about him when we talk about _mental illness_."

Robin was inclined to agree with Roy, both on the disturbing nature of the subject matter and on the fact that their teacher had yet to define the term—and though he was, at this point, entirely sure that he didn't want to know, it would probably be tested. He looked helplessly at Raven, who shrugged. Robin raised his hand and hoped that Ms. Quinzel felt like taking more questions.

"Mental illness, yep," she said, tone almost accusatory, ignoring Robin. Clenching her jaw and tapping the side of her head meaningfully, she turned back to the projector, shuffling through the folder of transparencies and dropping at least two on the ground without appearing to notice. "Now, our next thing that we should probably talk about is—"

The potential consequences of not knowing an answer outweighing those of interrupting, Robin took a breath and began hesitantly, "Excuse me, Ms. Quinzel? What's an…_id?"_ The word sounded all wrong when he said it, and he fought down the worry that he'd pronounced it incorrectly.

She jerked her head up, blinked twice, then broke into a laugh. "Oh! Whoopsie! You kids don't know about that yet, do ya?" Rising from her chair, transparencies forgotten, she launched straight into an explanation without even taking time to compose her thoughts. "Well, Freud thought that our minds were divided into three different…well, divisions! The id is what you're born with, and only cares about pleasure. The superego is—well, kinda like a superhero; it always wants to do the right thing, no matter what. I never liked superheroes." She wrinkled her nose. "The ego tries to balance the id and the superego. And in the anal phase, your id wants to control eliminations." She grinned at Robin. "Does that explain it better?"

Forehead wrinkling, feeling every other pair of eyes on him, he nodded, dropping his gaze to his notebook and trying to remember the details of what she'd said, preferably without actually _processing_ them. Trying to resist the urge to explain to Ms. Quinzel that there was no rational possibility of the mind being divided into three _anythings_, because the mind was an interwoven net of neurotransmitters and there were _definitely_ more than three. Trying to stop the way his attention kept drifting to the back corner of the classroom by the window, where Wally was whispering with Roy about something and surreptitiously eating a candy bar.

Before winter break, he'd thought that the hardest thing about this class would be dealing with Ms. Quinzel. That was starting to seem effortless, in comparison to striking a balance between not seeming too focused on Wally and not seeming too eager to avoid focusing on him.

"So anyway, that's that for Freud. Next, I guess we should probably talk about Pavlov. He was another crazy kid. There's a lot of crazy kids in this class."

Ms. Quinzel's bubbly voice broke through his thoughts, and the panic of missing several paragraphs of notes warred with the disbelief and humiliation of missing them in the first place, of not paying attention for the _second_ time that day, like Terra getting distracted by Coach Clark and not having any idea what the next set was in swim practice—Robin clenched his jaw and forced his attention toward the front of the room.

"—And he was supposed to be studying what was going on in the dogs' little tummies, but then he decided that what was going in their brains would be more fun, so he came up with this thing called 'classical conditioning,' which basically means…"

He hated psychology.

* * *

_Customary apologies for the long wait go here. I sincerely hope that the next chapter won't take as long. Thanks to everyone who's still sticking with this story, and comments are appreciated, as always._


	8. Distracted by Shiny Things

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Eight: Distracted by Shiny Things**

* * *

  
"Oh gosh, oh gosh—is Gizmo okay?"

Vic picked up the calculator from the pool deck from where it had narrowly escaped a shallow-but-substantial puddle and examined it carefully. "Looks alright to me. Hang onto it next time, huh?" He handed it back to Jinx, the purple stickers on its cover slightly wrinkled, but at least it was still functioning.

Jinx nodded vigorously, kissing the calculator and wrapping it in the corner of her towel. "Don't scare me like that, Gizmo. You were way, _way_ too expensive to die on me now," she admonished, running a towel-coated finger across it in an attempt to dry it. Sighing, she turned back to the textbook, hands finding their way into pink hair to redo her ponytail. "So what was part A?"

Vic frowned. "I said 'C12H22O12,' but that doesn't match up with the carbon monoxide. I'm really not sure."

"Ugh. Let's ask Robin when he gets done with—what event are they on?" She craned her neck, trying to see what was going on in the pool, but the bleachers were blocking their view from this angle.

"100 free," Vic said. "At least, it'd better be that and not the 500 free 'cos otherwise, I'm in trouble."

Suddenly, hands landed on either side of his neck, Gar's excited voice chirping, "Oh please; you're never in trouble. Now, if you'd cut laps with the rest of the normal people once in awhile…"

Vic laughed. "How was your race?"

"Sucky," Gar said. "But it wasn't my fault! My goggles came off, and this water's too cold, and you can't really tell when you're getting to the other end of the pool 'cos the water's all cloudy and gross, and my block was about _this_ close to falling apart, I swear. It was creaking under me and everything!"

"It couldn't be that bad," Vic said carefully. "What was your time?"

Gar shrugged. "Who cares? I got last. I hate swimming."

"You've sorta been saying that for the past ten years, y'know. And yet, every time I walk onto the deck on the first day of practice, you're already there begging to play water polo."

"I _like_ games. I hate _swimming."_ He stuck out his tongue.

"Hi, guys, um, still wanting to know how to do part B over here," Jinx said, waving a hand insistently in front of Vic's face.

"Sorry, but if we don't have it balanced right, the rest is gonna be all wrong, too," Vic answered. "And I know it's not balanced right. I just can't figure out—"

"Robin! Save us!" Jinx interrupted, eyes lighting up at the boy she'd just noticed.

He blinked uncertainly, face flushed and drenched with a towel over his shoulder, looking around as if he seriously expected some kind of danger. "From…what?"

Jinx stabbed the chemistry textbook with Gizmo the calculator, apparently having forgotten all about being careful with it. "From the chemistry demons! What's wrong with the balancing on this?" She shoved her paper at him, indicating the problem with a bright pink fingernail.

Sweatshirt forgotten limply in his arms halfway into the act of putting it on, Robin's eyes scanned the paper briefly before answering around chattering teeth, "That one should—" He paused to force air into his lungs. "Should be O11, not twelve," he finished breathlessly, grinning at something that would probably be amusing if Vic had a chemistry textbook implanted in his brain. "The difference between sucrose and lactobionic acid."

Jinx sighed, sinking further into her folding chair as if she wanted to drown in it. "I can't even balance. I'm doomed in this class. _So_ doomed."

Vic touched the arm of her chair. "Hey, I didn't know it, either." Turning to Robin, who was standing in front of them as if he expected more questions, Vic continued, "Thanks. I knew it wasn't right, but I couldn't make it work with the oxygen gas—and sugar seemed too obvious for Luthor to give us."

In the sense that you could predict anything about Mr. Luthor's assignments, of course. He creeped Vic out, especially with that calculating look he kept giving Robin that Vic wasn't sure if his friend had noticed.

Robin shrugged good-naturedly, breathing slowly returning to normal, along with most of his speaking ability. "You don't need to read his mind to get the right answer. Carbon's still carbon, no matter who's teaching." A slight look of annoyance passed over him. "It's not a bunch of mind games like Psychology; it's just balancing equations."

"It's just DNA translations," Jinx mocked. "It's just second derivatives. It's just thermodynamics. It's just—"

"So, you had a good race?" Vic interrupted forcefully, shifting to indicate that Robin had his full attention. He probably _had_ had a good race, judging by the fact that he was standing here talking to them instead of using the warm down pool as the 'punish yourself with fifty laps of fly' pool. Of course, that could just be because Bruce was here and would drag him out of the water if he did that, but he seriously did look more relaxed than usual.

"Yeah, it was alright," Robin said, expression composed but pleased.

"Alright? Yeah, _right."_ Gar rolled his eyes. "You only got first. You only beat that _huge_ guy in lane three. I was there, dude, remember?"

He smiled. "Fine; it was good. I wasn't expecting to cut that much time, and I couldn't beat 'that huge guy' last year."

"In other words, if we give you a few more weeks, you'll _really_ be perfect," Gar said. "Now can you guys _puh-lease_ stop talking about school? Us normal people are allergic to that."

"Sorry, Gar, but Jinx wants to get this done," Vic said, frowning at the blue tinge to Robin's lips. "Hey, Mr. Perfect, put your shirt on before you freeze."

Robin's gaze fell on the sweatshirt as if he'd just remembered that it existed, and he nodded, pulling it on over his head.

"Hi, chemical equations over here?" Jinx waved the notebook paper in front of them insistently. "So with this one, I can't get—"

"Heeey, I _said_ no more school!"

Gar's interruption made Jinx flinch, her calculator teetering precariously on the edge of her chair before she lunged for it, then glared up at him where he was sitting on the top row of bleachers. "Some of us aren't allowed to go out till we get all our chemistry done. And after we get our first test back, I'm not going to be allowed to go out, period."

"You can always trade with Robin," Gar said, snickering. "He's probably not allowed to do chemistry until he goes to the movies or something. You guys can balance each other out and stuff."

"I'd like to _balance_ equations before I have to go swim breaststroke!" Jinx said irritably.

Vic stood up, glancing over the bleachers to the pool, and sighed. "Speaking of swimming, I'm really sorry to cut this short, but Robin and I have to go."

Gar paled, whirling around from glaring at Jinx to stare at him, wide-eyed. "You're _seriously_ swimming the 500?"

"I always swim it—"

Gar's stare shifted to Robin, who was still shivering a little. _"You're_ seriously swimming the 500? How many laps is that, again? Like, a thousand?"

"Twenty," Robin answered mechanically, the happiness dimming somewhat as he seemed to remember what he had to do, the familiar, focused intensity replacing it. "And yeah, I am."

Coach Clark made everyone swim all the events at least once, which Vic thought was kind of pointless because they should know what they were good at by now, but it didn't really matter enough to complain about it. Robin hated distance, though he'd asked for this, even when Coach had tried to talk him out of it because he was swimming an event right before it—Vic wondered if Robin's insistence had something to do with the fact that Bruce was here. The 500—most distance stuff, really—was Bruce's event, in the sense that he _had_ events because Bruce was good at everything, and Robin had never stopped trying to impress him. In fact, it seemed like it was getting worse.

"It'll be fine," Vic said. "C'mon, let's go find counters." He nodded reassuringly to Jinx. "We'll be back to finish chemistry in a little while, promise."

"We should have already had counters," Robin muttered, more to himself than Vic, pulling a dry towel out of his swim bag and moving to peel off the sweatshirt.

"No, leave that on; you can take it off at the blocks." Bad enough that Robin hated this event and was obviously making himself do it; worse for him to hate it while freezing to death.

Some of the good humor from just a moment ago returned as a half-smile touched his lips, and he left the shirt on. "Yes, mom."

"See you guys later—if you're still alive." Gar suppressed a laugh. "Couldn't pay me to swim that. No way."

"Coach'll make you do it eventually," Jinx pointed out from behind her textbook, pencil moving furiously.

Gar rolled his eyes, waving a hand. "That's what he thinks. They don't call me the master of excuses for nothing. But that's okay; you guys go. I'm gonna see if Terra—if she needs some water. Or a bagel. Or a towel. Or something."

Vic smiled, waved to him, and grabbed his goggles, following Robin to the blocks and wondering if Wally would be up for counting his laps. He'd been acting completely strange ever since the New Year's party, and Vic was pretty sure he had a good idea as to why, but Wally hadn't mentioned it, and he wasn't going to push.

"So Gar told me that you were off to swim 'the race of doom'."

He spun around, familiar nervousness flooding him at the voice, breath catching when he looked down at Raven, a characteristic smirk on her face that always seemed as if she knew everything he was thinking. Her dark hair was pulled into a low ponytail, the streak of purple that she'd had since last year hanging free and framing the side of her face. She stood out for being one of the only dry, fully clothed teenagers in the building—Raven didn't swim on the high school team, had said that she had no desire to run a mile before every practice and _less _than no desire to ride a bus for two hours just to swim in pools that were exactly the same as the one at home. Of course, she stood out to Vic in completely different ways, but that wasn't something he needed to advertise right now. Or ever.

"Hey, glad you could make it," he said, hoping the tone sounded natural, sounded like _him_.

She tilted her head slightly to the side. "I said I'd meet you guys for food, and unlike certain other members of the group, I'm not usually so distracted by shiny things that I forget what's going on."

"Um—you're not talking about me, are you? 'Cos I really hope you're not talking about me," Vic answered, managing a smile, though he was sure it was a lot less genuine than his usual.

Raven's smirk morphed into a much more natural smile than his, and either she wasn't at all nervous or was just a lot better at hiding it—he wasn't sure which would be worse. "Actually, I was talking about that one who's trying to hide behind you," she said calmly, pointing an amused finger at something behind Vic.

"Oh! Hey, Wally," Vic said, feeling impossibly stupid for exactly two seconds before normal instincts kicked in and he launched into a defense of his friend, hoping it wasn't about what he thought it was about. Trying to gage Robin's reaction to him being here because Wally certainly wasn't going to be objective about that. "And Raven, Wally's not that—"

"Distracted by shiny things?" Raven supplied, folding her arms across a copy of _The Scarlet Letter_. "All I know is that _somebody_ said they would study with me tonight. And seems to have forgotten that he had other plans."

Wally studied the book in her hands, eyes searching for an answer before recognition hit him and he laughed. "Well, obviously I _meant_ after the swim meet; it'll still be 'tonight' when it's over."

"Uh huh. I tend to start my studying at eleven-thirty at night, too," Raven said, nodding sagely. She poked his arm with one corner of the book. "It's fine: I'm not the one who'll have trouble explaining the significance of 'The Customs House' tomorrow."

"Wait, Customs-what? I thought we were reading _The Scarlet Letter_!"

"We _are,_ Wally. Did you read the _beginning?" _

"Hey, you don't have to start reading till it says 'chapter one'!" At her rapidly deepening smirk, he held up his hands in a gesture of defenselessness. "Oh, and I guess you think I should have read the _preface,_ too!"

"Some people do find it beneficial," she deadpanned, ignoring Wally's grandiose eyeroll and looking up at Vic, continuing in a more natural tone, "So I thought you guys had a 'race of doom' to undertake. Need a counter?"

The right answer froze in his throat halfway out of his mouth, and he barely managed to disguise it with a cough, saving himself with, "That would be great, actually. If, y'know, you don't mind."

She shook her head, and Vic thought for a terrifying moment that she was about to say no, then remembered that he'd sort of asked if she _minded_ counting for him, so she was probably responding to _that,_ then decided that maybe he should stop panicking and let her actually speak.

"I'd love to," she said, and then it didn't matter what she'd love to do, or what race he had to go swim in five minutes, or much else, really. But it had to matter because he had to come up with a good answer when she asked, "It's the little square things at the ends of the lanes, right? So how do I—" She waved a questioning hand in the direction of the other end of the pool.

"It's easy; just count my laps and put the right number in the water right before I turn."

She twisted the purple strand of hair, brow wrinkling. "Um—how soon is 'right before'—and how do you see it? And why can't you count to—how many laps is it, again?"

"Twenty."

"You can't count to twenty by yourself?"

Vic shrugged. "Well, yeah, but it's hard to think about that while you're swimming. You're too focused on the race. You know?"

Raven stared at him blankly. "No, not really," she admitted. "Which, now that you mention it, might be why I've never been good at swimming and never wanted to be."

"Well," he began, trying to think of something that would make sense and didn't sound completely stupid. "Maybe—it's like—getting really absorbed in a book or something. You know—you don't really think about when you've read twenty pages." He wondered where the right words had gone. Probably to the same place where his ability to say them was hiding.

She smiled in that adorable way from underneath raised eyebrows, and sort of halfway laughed, though it didn't sound like she was laughing at him. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, I'll go with that. And you have a race to swim. I'll take care of helping you count to twenty for when you forget." They stared at each other for a long, awkward moment, not speaking, before Raven finally broke the silence by turning to Robin and continuing, "Hey, are you swimming this, too?"

He nodded, and Vic caught the nervous glance at Wally that he tried to disguise as—well, as anything but a nervous glance at Wally. Vic hadn't gotten enough sense of the situation to really know what it meant.

Raven eyed the set white tiles lined up at the end of each lane doubtfully. "Somehow, I don't think I can count for both of you at the same time, if that's what you were going to ask me."

"I wasn't—"

"Hey, do you—do you need someone?" Wally asked hesitantly, or as hesitantly as Wally did anything, from halfway behind Vic as if he wanted to use him as a buffer between them. Vic felt oddly like the Berlin Wall. "You know, for counting and all that," he clarified in a rush, eyes searching for Robin's reaction.

Blue eyes narrowed as Robin brushed still-damp hair out of his eyes, looking kind of trapped and kind of afraid and kind of hopeful all at once. Finally, he cleared his throat and answered, "Yeah, that would be good—thanks. I'm in lane two."

From Wally's face, you would have thought he'd just been told that he'd won a trip to Disney World.

* * *

"Hey Cyborg, can I talk to you?" 

"Can I take a shower first?" Vic asked with a meaningful glance in the direction of the locker rooms, throwing his towel around his neck.

"No," Wally said, dragging him behind a mostly-empty set of bleachers. He looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice and continued, "Does Robin hate me?"

Vic blinked. "I had a great race, thanks for asking. And don't you still have to swim the—"

He shook his head forcefully, reaching up with one hand and grabbing the underside of the highest row of seats. "I _don't care. _He won't even look at me, and you heard what Koma's saying to people—and I can't keep _doing_ this, Vic."

"Doing what?"

"Not knowing if he hates me or not! And as much as I want it, it's not worth—if he's going to keep avoiding me like this, I'd rather just be friends. I really, seriously would. And from our other conversations about this, I think that should tell you just how much I don't want him to avoid me. 'Cos Cy, I want this. A _lot."_

He sighed, looking up at the white rafters intersecting each other along the ceiling. "I know you do. But you can't make someone feel something just because you really, really want them to, y'know."

Wally visibly deflated. "So he doesn't like me?"

"That's not what I said—"

"So he _does_ like me!"

"I don't know! All I'm sayin' is that you can't _make _him like you. And that maybe you'd get better answers asking _him_ instead of me."

"I can't _ask_ him," Wally said, as if Vic had suggested that he learn how to fly.

"Why not? You never seemed to have a problem asking anyone else something like this…"

"Yeah, but." He dragged a bare toe along a groove in the deck. "Half the school thinks we're going out anyway, thanks to Her Bitchiness. Robin hates it when people say stuff to him about it, and he hates it more when people snicker about it behind his back, and anyway, this is _Robin,_ and it's different. I can't just ask him, not after Koma. It'll freak him out."

"Well, I know one thing," Vic said. "You're not going to get anywhere asking me to decode him for you. I don't think he hates you, I can tell you that much, but he hasn't said anything about it to me, and even if he had, I wouldn't tell anyone. Not even you." He ignored the disappointment on Wally's face and continued, "Look, you guys are two of the best friends I've ever had. So I'm not going to get in the middle of this. I know Terra and Starfire are into the matchmaking thing, so maybe you can ask one of them, but the way I see it, me getting involved is just going to run the risk of one or both of you being upset with me."

"But—"

Vic squeezed his shoulder gently. "I can't. I love you, Wally, and I really hope it works out like you want it to, but you're going to have to figure it out on your own."

"I just need to know if he hates me," Wally said, glancing out at the warm down pool through the bleachers. Vic had a pretty good idea of what he was looking at. _"And_ now he's off paying for not beating you in the 500 when he shouldn't have even done it tonight anyway, and I _know_ he's freezing, and his stupid dad doesn't get it, and—"

Vic nodded sympathetically. "That part I _can_ get involved with; I'll go get him out, unless you'd like to go remind him how much ass he kicked in the 100. And I _know_ you didn't just call Coach Bruce 'stupid'."

Wally rolled his eyes. "Puh-lease. Coach Bruce might have butterfly hand position and international-business-stuff coming out of his ears, but he _is_ stupid with things like this. The more I hear Crazy Quinzel talk about psychology, the more I realize just _how_ stupid, actually. And as for the other thing—" A smile slowly warmed his face. "I think I'll go do that. You go take your shower. Gotta look good for _Raaaven."_ He winked.

"I _will _get you back for that."

"And I'm scaring myself by sorta hoping that you'll be able to," Wally said, slithering out from behind the bleachers and offering a perfunctory wave. "See ya at dinner!"

"Yeah," Vic said, after he was out of earshot. "See ya."

* * *

_So I almost made my end-of-February deadline! Not too much to say other than thank you guys for reading, I hope it's what you were hoping for, and I would like to have chapter nine out by at least the end of March—thinking it'll be sooner than that, since I by some miracle wrote this one in two days. Comments very welcome!_


	9. But Needles are Sharp

**Time Cut**

**Chapter Nine: But Needles are Sharp**

* * *

It was going to be a good day, except Terra was upset.

Starfire could always tell. When Terra was sad, her entire face was sad, not just her frown. Even her hair seemed to droop. Last month, when Terra had woken up to find her goldfish floating dead in his tank, Starfire had known even before she could see Terra's face because her shoulders were rounded, almost wilted.

This wasn't quite so bad because she didn't look precisely wilted yet, but when she slid into the low, plastic cafeteria seat, Starfire could tell that something was wrong. Which wouldn't do.

"What is the matter?" she questioned, offering Terra a cookie.

Her friend took the snack gratefully, shoving the whole thing in her mouth. "Ooo, you didn't say you had peanut butter ones. Got any more?"

"Yes, I have several!" Starfire said, pushing the bag closer to Terra. "And you seemed a bit—distant, in math class today. I could tell because you were focused on the flower garden outside the window and not on our conversation."

"Ugh, sorry, Star; I'm just so _mad!" _

"But why? I thought you liked Thursdays because you got to see Gar in debate—"

"Shh! Don't say that so loud!" Terra hissed, looking frantically over her shoulder as if Gar would be very angry if he heard. Which didn't make much sense to Starfire because she thought that anyone would be pleased to learn that someone liked them—well, as much as Terra liked Gar.

"I apologize, but I still don't understand why you are upset."

Terra slammed a palm down on the table, just barely missing the bag of cookies. "My _retarded _dad says that I can't get my ears pierced, so Mom won't go with me to get it done!"

Starfire stared at her for a long moment, trying to understand, then finally shrugged. "Why not go by yourself? Or if you don't wish to do that, I would not mind accompanying—"

"No, that's not the problem—you think I'd really drag my mom with me to the mall like some loser if I had a choice?" She sighed. "If you're my age, you can't get your ears pierced without permission from your parents here, remember?"

"They don't think that is a decision you are capable of making yourself?"

"I guess not—'cos that's totally the rule."

Starfire blinked at her. "That…is very strange," she pronounced at last. Because it was.

"Maybe I should move to Africa. It sounds much cooler than here. Or at least go visit long enough to pierce my ears." She reached into the bag and grabbed another cookie, twirling it fitfully around in a circle on her plate. "My parents don't get it. It's not fair: _everybody_ has earrings except me, and Kitten gave me some at my birthday party last year, but I can't even wear them, and Mom and Dad don't even _care!" _

Starfire eyed Terra's earlobes critically, leaning back in her seat a little while she thought about it, looked away to stare out the window for a few moments and then finally spinning around and turning back to her friend.

Terra's eyes narrowed. "Whenever you do that kind of stuff, it usually means you have an awesome idea, so I really hope you do."

Starfire grinned. "Oh, I most certainly do. Perhaps we would not have to travel across the ocean in order to pierce your ears."

"Uh, Star, I already said that I can't get it done at the mall without my parents' permiss—"

The grin intensified as Starfire slowly shook her head, arms coming up to cross over her purple shirt. "No, I am not talking about the mall," she sang, voice high-pitched and anticipatory.

Terra grabbed her hands, bouncing excitedly in her seat. "Tell me!"

"When I was six, Koma pierced my ears with a sewing needle. Last year, Rose Wilson needed assistance, and the process went very well. I would be most eager to try the same with you."

"Eww, Rose Wilson like Coach Slade's—uh, wait…_needle?" _

"Precisely!" Starfire grinned, waiting for her friend to realize what a wonderful idea this was.

Terra choked on what remained of the cookie.

"Uh—you mean like, an _actual_—but needles are _sharp!" _

She nodded. "Something which we would find helpful in reaching our goal, I think."

"But, like, you'd stick it in my _ear?"_

"I could do it after you finish with debate today, if that would be acceptable."

Terra's hands flew to her ears, her face losing most of its usual color, though she made that high-pitched noise that reminded Starfire of the squeaky toys that Kitten's dog, Fang chewed on sometimes—and that _was_ rather _usual_ for Terra.

"So, uh, what are you sticking in Terra's ear?"

Starfire turned towards the voice, ignoring Terra's look of horror and the blonde tidal wave that accompanied her frenzied head shake. She smiled at Wally, explaining cheerfully, "Terra's parents will not allow her to pierce her ears, so I am offering to find other methods of accomplishing the task."

"Neat; what kind of methods?"

"I have some knowledge of the correct procedure because Koma did it to me, so I told her to come to my house after debate practice was over, and—"

"Hey, since Terra looks kinda freaked about it, you wanna practice on me first?" Wally suddenly asked, looking a great deal more interested than he'd been before.

"Certainly!" Starfire said. "Would you like a cookie?"

It took a moment for her to notice Terra's shocked expression, and the other girl finally managed to close her mouth, then open it enough to sputter, "But—but—you're a _boy_!"

"Yeah. So?"

"Boys can't have earrings!" Terra narrowed her eyes, thinking about it. "Not if they wanna ever come to my house, anyway, 'cos Dad will get really mad."

Wally raised an eyebrow. "Get mad? At me? Naw, don't think so."

Terra blew her breath out in a huge puff of air, reaching for a bottle of juice. "Fine, but just make sure my dad doesn't see it."

"I sorta think you should be more worried about making sure he doesn't see _yours,_ if you do it," Wally said, taking a seat on the other side of Starfire. "And a cookie would be great."

Starfire passed him the bag.

Terra slouched even further in her seat, as if she were trying to slide under the table. "Good point. Maybe I can take it out in front of him or something. Or wear earmuffs!" She grinned.

Starfire shook her head doubtfully. "I believe that might draw even more attention to your ears."

"I'll figure something out! And anyway, I don't care. I want earrings."

"Excellent!" Starfire said. "So you will join us after debate?"

Terra stopped trying to unscrew the cap on her juice, casting a nervous glance at Starfire. "…So the needle. How much does it hurt, exactly?"

Starfire shrugged. "It did not hurt very much when Koma did it. Not nearly as much as the year before that, when she told me that if I jumped into a river with many sharp rocks at the bottom, she would give me one of her dresses." Starfire frowned. "I really ought to have known that she had no intention of doing so."

Terra held up the juice bottle so it was between her and Starfire and hid part of her face. "Somehow, that doesn't make me feel too much better, Star," she moaned. "But…I still want earrings."

"Then it is decided," she said, nodding authoritatively. "I will be at home at seven o'clock after swim practice, waiting for you, and in the meantime I will try to locate a cigarette lighter or match."

If it were possible, Terra seemed even paler than before. "Uh—what are you gonna do with _fire _that involves my face?"

"It prevents infection," Starfire said. Wally nodded agreement.

"You are _not_ burning my face; I'd rather get an infection!"

"No, it is—" Starfire broke off and sighed because she wasn't sure how it worked herself, to be perfectly honest. "Perhaps Robin could explain sterilization to you after school, if he is not too busy doing extra work for Mr. Luthor."

And it might have been Starfire's imagination, but it seemed that Wally's shoulders looked remarkably wilted in the same way that Terra's always were when something had upset her. She wasn't sure why because Wally seemed to like Robin quite a bit—though he didn't like Mr. Luthor, or chemistry, now that Mr. Luthor was teaching it and wouldn't allow them to create explosions, so that could be it—and she resolved to find out what it was.

* * *

"Ooooh, so _that's_ what you meant with the fire—why didn't you just _tell me_ you weren't gonna burn my face off!"

Starfire blinked at her. "Why would I do that?"

"You were talking about matches! What was I supposed to think!"

"I thought you meant that you didn't know why it made the needle clean," Starfire said. "I would have explained _this, _if you had said something."

"But I did! I was like—ugh, never mind." Terra swung her legs back and forth on the kitchen counter, hair in a low ponytail, hands placed thoughtfully—or perhaps protectively—over her earlobes, holding the ice cubes against the backs. She flinched when Starfire raised herself up on her toes to reach Terra's face. "Heeey, where're you gonna put that?"

"Don't worry; it is only a marker," Starfire said, moving Terra's hands away and carefully making a black dot on each ear, then stepping back to make sure they were at the same level.

"I don't know about this," Terra murmured, eyeing the needles. The first of which Starfire was currently running through the flame of a match she'd stolen out of Koma's room (her sister loved candles, especially dreary, black ones).

"Honestly, there is no need to be concerned," Starfire said, smiling. "I have done this before, as I said, and no problems should arise, provided that you observe proper hygienic precautions afterwards."

Terra did not appear convinced.

"Well, if she's not ready, I am," Wally said, moving to sit on one of the wooden stools by the refrigerator and tossing his ice cube at the sink. "That way you can see that it's not a big deal, Terra."

"She has a needle. In her hand. And you're gonna let her. Put it. In your face. That's a big deal!"

"But you want your ears pierced," he pointed out calmly.

"Well…yeah."

"The 'piercing' part sorta comes with the territory, then, I think. But seriously, just watch, and if you decide you don't want to, then you can go back to begging your dad to let you go to the mall."

Terra leaned back against a wooden cupboard and nodded slowly, not taking her eyes off the needle. Starfire wasn't able to watch her anymore, however, because Wally was looking up at her expectantly, and she needed to concentrate to do a good job.

"You're quite sure that the positioning is satisfactory?" she asked, leaning down and nudging her hair out of her face. "Do you need to check the mirror again?"

"No, it's fine," he answered. "Even if it's not, worst case scenario, it'll close eventually. Besides." He grinned. "I've never done it this way before, and I think it's cool."

"Wait, you've done this before?" Terra piped up from the counter, though Starfire didn't look at her because she had to make sure she put the needle in correctly. From Terra's audible wince, it seemed that watching wasn't helping her too much.

Wally didn't answer for a moment because Starfire had poked the needle through at the exact moment that Terra asked the question—he was still and silent, face focused straight ahead at the refrigerator, and it occurred to Starfire that this was one of the few times when she'd seen Wally relatively calm. She wondered briefly what it said about him that it took a sharp object piercing his flesh to make him calm, and had to stop the giggle that nearly resulted because she needed to keep her hands steady.

And then the moment passed, and he answered with no indication that there had been a pause, "Yeah, awhile back I did."

"Only one?" Starfire asked him again, for the third time, as she removed the needle and replaced it with the gold hoop. "Because I am happy to do another—"

"One's good," Wally said.

"Uh." Terra tilted her head inquisitively, still rubbing the ice cubes over her ears—her _entire_ ear, it seemed like, and possibly some of her neck as well—which struck Starfire as rather unnecessary, but she didn't mention it. "Don't tell me you decided to let it close just so Starfire could pierce it again? 'Cos that's kind of a lot of trouble just to be able to say that you let your friend stick a needle in your ear."

Wally's expression changed again, in a way that was similar to the strange calm that he'd exhibited earlier, though this was different, somehow—there was a serious, almost shadowed edge to it, his eyes focused on something far away, and then it was over, and he shrugged. "Got a little hurt awhile back, so it wasn't good to really mess with it, but now it's healed—I was planning on doing it soon, anyway, but then Starfire offered." He took the towel that she held out to him and pressed it against his ear. "Anyway, your turn, right, Terra?"

Terra leaned forward, elbows coming to rest on her knees. "How much blood is there?" she asked, nose wrinkling.

"Like, none. It's fine, trust me. Starfire knows what she's doing."

"Thank you!" Starfire beamed as she went to dispose of the needle and wash her hands. "Are you ready now, Terra?" she asked, squeezing a substantial amount of soap into her palms.

Starfire had finished washing her hands and preparing the second needle by the time Terra had decided that she was ready, but in the end, she took Wally's place on the stool, holding the ice cubes to her earlobes until the last moment, eyes tightly closed and chin pointed down.

"So how's debate?" Wally suddenly asked as Starfire raised the needle to Terra's ear.

Almost out of surprise, Terra opened one eye—then quickly squeezed it shut again when she saw what Starfire was doing. "Uh—it's—okay," she answered, utterly distracted, hands knotted together in her lap and feet tense and flat on the floor.

"What are you guys doing right now?"

Terra forced a shallow breath. "I'm, um, working on th—this thing—" Two shallow breaths this time. "This poem, and it's really neat but kinda long, so I haven't got it all memor—" She broke off with a gasp as Starfire did the second ear.

"Jeez, not so hard! Gimme a second before you do the next one!"

"Terra?"

"What?"

"Unless you have a third ear that I am unaware of, there is no 'next one'."

One blue eye opened slowly, cautiously, as if expecting an explosion. Then, when no such thing occurred, the second eye. Then Terra turned her head gingerly to stare at Starfire. "You're done?"

"With that part, yes! Now continue looking straight ahead, please, so I can put in the second earring."

Terra's shoulders sagged as she sank down in the stool. "I stressed _way_ too much about this."

"Little bit, yeah," Wally smiled. "You want some water?"

"…Got any pink lemonade?"

Starfire paused from what she was doing to point at one of the cupboards near the kitchen door. "There is powder in there and a pitcher under the sink. If you would not mind beginning, we can all have some after I finish."

Terra's grin grew wider at the words, magnified even further because Starfire was so close to her face. Her shoulders twitched with the effort to stay still. "I can't believe I have pierced ears!" she squealed. "I can't believe I have pierced ears and my parents said no!"

"Yeah, about that." Wally opened one of the packets of pink sugar, a little too roughly, and sneezed when it caught him in the face. It made Starfire smile because he looked very cute. "I'm good at hiding things from parents, so let me know if you have any trouble."

"I'll definitely have trouble," Terra said, rolling her eyes. "Dad's gonna freak. But it was worth it. Can I see them, pleeease?"

After washing her hands and cleaning up the more sensitive items, Starfire held up the black hand mirror in front of Terra's face.

"Yay, they're so pretty! I couldn't decide between pink and blue. Really glad I went with blue."

"Yes, it matches your eyes," Starfire agreed, standing behind her to look at Terra's reflection, some of her own hair falling over her friend's shoulders. Terra looked older, somehow, and Starfire couldn't decide if it was the small rhinestones in her ears or the new, different kind of satisfied smile on her face. Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was just half of her hair being damp because she'd rubbed the ice cube _everywhere_.

"This was the best thing I've ever done," Terra announced, reaching out to take the glass of lemonade that Wally offered her. The satisfied smile grew a bit smaller, into the familiar, secretive one that Starfire knew very well by now. "Do you guys think that—think that Gar will notice?"

"I am certain that he will," Starfire said, patting her shoulder.

"Well, guys can be kinda—unobservant," Wally mused, studying her, and Terra squirmed slightly in her seat, waiting for the verdict. "But I still think he'll notice."

She hid the magnanimous smile behind an equally-magnanimous gulp of lemonade.

"Y'know," Terra began thoughtfully, once she'd set the glass on the counter. "You'd better be careful about the whole piercing thing, Wally—'cos people might start to think that—" Her eyes darted to the side, a hint of pink coloring her cheeks. "That, y'know, you, like, _like_ boys, or something. Y'know. Like _that._"

Wally shrugged. "I don't really have a problem with them thinking that. Partially 'cos they'd be right."

Starfire was glad that Terra had already put the glass down, because she had a distinct feeling that if she hadn't, they would have had a rather large mess to clean up.

"You _what?"_ Terra sputtered, hands falling limply to her sides as her mouth fell open and stayed open. "But you didn't _say_ anything!"

"But you didn't ask," Wally said evenly.

"But—but—you've—I mean, I've seen—you can't be gay!" she managed, shaking her head forcefully. "What about right before you moved—you totally thought that Marissa was cute, _remember?"_ Terra reached out with her hands desperately, as if reminding him about Marissa would also remind him that he was not actually attracted to boys.

"Okay, first of all, I was _eleven._ Nothing counts when you're eleven. And second of all, I never said I was gay."

"You can't—you can't just—this is totally insane!"

"Not really," Wally said. "So I'm less picky than most people. The way I see it, better odds of finding someone I like."

"Uh. Someone you like?"

"Yeah," Wally said.

"…This wouldn't have anything to do with the rumors that Koma started about you and Robin, would it?" Terra asked slowly, reaching to take another sip of her lemonade.

Starfire sighed. "What rumors has my sister been spreading _now_? I certainly hope that it is not as slanderous as the one last year about Roy and illegal substances."

Terra blinked at her. "You mean you seriously haven't heard? Starfire, really, _how_ do you go to this school and be friends with everyone and _never _hear the nasty rumors?"

"Rumors are seldom true, always hurtful, and never interesting," Starfire said, shrugging. "I would much rather find more fun activities to engage in."

"Yeah, sometimes I think you're not from this _planet,_ not just outside this country, but whatever, the point is that now half the school thinks that Robin and Wally are going out—but I _never _thought that, Wally, just so you know; I just wanted to warn you about the earring thing, since people already think—" She paused, watching one of the ice cubes in her glass swirl around the edge, then gasped. "Oh, god. But you like boys. It isn't _true,_ is it? I mean, you and Robin, y'know."

Wally's eyes flashed with a momentary sadness that Starfire almost thought she imagined, except her vision was, and had always been, superior. "No. Much as I wish it were otherwise."

Terra spent approximately five seconds faltering between absolute shock and her usual reaction to hearing news about prospective couples, before finally settling on the latter. "Oh my _god!_ That's so cute!"

"Nothing's cute because there's nothing to _be_ cute because we're not going out!"

Terra waved a dismissive hand. "Have you even asked him?"

"Uh—not really."

Starfire grinned, beginning to warm up to the discussion now. "Then I hardly see a problem at the moment! Ask him!"

"No!"

"But why not?" Terra demanded. "And if you say it's 'cos you're shy, I _am_ gonna pour the rest of what's in this glass down your shirt."

Wally started to laugh, but seemed to remember something and didn't quite succeed. "It's—more complicated than that."

"C'mon, what do you have to lose? …Ow." Terra flinched. "Messing with hair and touching ear, bad idea."

"Yeah, don't do that," Wally said. "And a lot. On the losing thing."

This did not seem to discourage Terra. If anything, it had quite the opposite effect. Both hands flew to her chest, ponytail holder hanging free and forgotten from a few stray strands of hair. "That's so _adorable!_ You guys _have _to be together!"

Wally sighed. "It's not that simple."

Starfire reached over and touched his arm. "In my experience, it seldom is, but that does not mean that you shouldn't try."

"Yeah, well, see, here's the thing: in _my_ experience, it _is_ simple, always was, and this—is totally not, and I'd like to go back to simple if it's all the same."

Starfire tilted her face down, eyes gazing up at him slightly, studying his expression. "Do you truly want that?"

"Yeah, if it means not having Robin and stuff?" Terra chimed in.

He released a long sigh. "No."

Starfire nodded. "Then it has already been decided, I believe."

Wally's gaze flickered to the now half-empty pitcher of lemonade, as if he wanted to hide inside it, which was a very odd look for him. "Can we just—talk about something else?"

"No!" Terra answered immediately.

"Guys, seriously," he said, voice becoming quieter as he stared at the pitcher. "Thanks. And I'm glad things are clear with y'all—crap, sorry, with you guys, about what's going on with us. Or what's not going on. But I don't think this is really something you can help me with."

"At least think about what we said," Terra pleaded, eyes big and blue and shiny.

"Yeah," he answered after a moment's hesitation, and he sounded slightly more like himself when he continued, "Yeah, I will. I promise."

* * *

_Oh, look at me making my deadline! Thanks to all who are still reading! Let's go with the end of April for the next one._


End file.
